Today we’d like to introduce you to Kayla Felten
Hi Kayla, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
My name is Kayla Felten, MSW, LICSW (she/her) and I have been an advocate for religious trauma and spiritual abuse survivors throughout my career, as the co-founder of the Reclamation Collective, as well as a Psychedelic Therapist in my clinical work. In both of these realms of practice, I have been able to support those in the process of reclaiming their inner peace, relational harmony, autonomy, pleasure, and authentic self. I was initially invited to facilitate support groups for survivors of spiritual abuse due to abuses of power taking place in plant medicine and yogi contexts within Minnesota. This experience helped expand my understanding of spiritual abuse both within and outside of religious contexts, and has allowed me to be a voice of advocacy within the psychedelic and therapeutic communities I show up in to inspire heightened awareness of the power dynamics present in these containers for potential healing, while acknowledging the coexisting potential for abuse.
With over five years experience facilitating support groups, integration circles, retreats, and teaching workshops for folks navigating themes of religious trauma, spiritual abuse, deconstruction, and reclamation through the Reclamation Collective, I aspire to curate expanded offerings for survivors on their healing trajectories that prioritize personal autonomy and pursue radical authenticity.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
While we are proud to offer all of our virtual support groups at an accessible pay-as-you-can exchange of $200-$400 for participation in our 10 week // 20 hour groups, we acknowledge that not everyone is able to access these supportive spaces with financial ease. In 2024 we were able to provide 54 scholarships to those unable to cover the registration fee, yet each season there are dozens of applicants we cannot secure a scholarship for.
The Reclamation Collective intentionally offers non-clinical interventions that honor survivor narratives without the pressure, risks, or associated costs of pathologizing human beings. Our Religious Trauma Clinician Directory supports survivors in connecting to clinical resources such as therapy in the state where they reside when more individualized care is needed. However our virtual support groups offer folks access to a mental health professional for $10-$20 per hour, when the costs to access a therapist in most clinical spaces can cost $120-$300+ per hour.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
The Reclamation Collective is a 501c3 organization centering survivors of religious trauma and spiritual abuse by curating virtual support groups for those navigating deconstruction and reclamation on their healing trajectory. We additionally house a religious trauma informed clinician directory on our website, where folks can find a therapist licensed in the state or province where they reside. The RC connects survivors internationally to each other by offering community-based healing spaces while prioritizing each individual’s sovereignty over their own reclamation journey. As a nonprofit, our board of directors aim to develop our organization in a way that challenges the nonprofit industrial complex, while prioritizing organizational sustainability and accessibility of all our offerings to survivors.
Survivors are not our mission field, and the Reclamation Collective is not a ministry, but rather a collective of survivors ourselves reimagining systems of care.
Whether you are experiencing a wave of anger or resentment towards your faith of origin or you are in the process of trying to reclaim or reconstruct within a faith context, your experience is valid.
Research shows that approximately one-third of U.S adults have experienced religious trauma at some point in their lives. The Reclamation Collective founders Kayla Felten and Kendra Snyder formed the RC due to a clear need for non-clinical interventions to help facilitate the healing, safety, and security for religious trauma survivors in their communities in Minneapolis. The RC has been working since 2019 but received 501c3 status in 2021. They began with retreats, gathering survivors to honor their diverse experiences and empower them to reclaim their spiritual autonomy.
Reclamation is the process of claiming or reasserting a right to the personal expression of one’s humanity.
Since founding, the RC has expanded, now formally offering virtual support groups and one on one consultations, in addition to retreats and other community gatherings. The RC also has a public international Religious Trauma Informed Clinician Directory, a Spiritual Power Inventory Tool, and an array of online workshops for Continuing Education Units (CEUs). As of now, our support groups are the primary method through which we engage and hold space with survivors. Our groups are facilitated by trauma-informed clinicians, who either specialize in Religious Trauma or who have received training. All RC facilitators are contracted, licensed clinicians who may be actively practicing outside of their work with us.
The Reclamation Collective services a niche community, making our work essential for the folks who may not have any other access to this much needed support. Individuals—especially those from marginalized backgrounds—need affordable access to practical tools to safely and authentically engage in their deconstruction journeys. Our pay-as-you-can support groups serve participants who are doing the challenging work of identifying the ways in which they have been disempowered within the communities that make up their cultures and which have defined their entire worldviews. Our participants are unpacking their sense of reality, often causing them to experience deep existential crises. Survivors of spiritual abuse require access to the healing and affirming spaces that our organization provides.
As for sacred space holders such as spiritual leaders, the Reclamation Collective promotes the prevention of spiritual abuse. Through support groups for sacred space holders, we educate these leaders about the power that they inevitably hold so that they may become more aware and equipped to actively avoid unconsciously abusing this power. We additionally hold support groups designed for particular cases where spiritual abuse within an institution reaches a wide-spread and even public peak, and where intervention is required for the collective of individuals involved.
At RC, we recognize that not everyone intends to move away from their religious affiliation but are seeking a more empowered relationship to their spirituality and more agency in how they engage with their communities. At the same time, many of our participants have experienced serious Adverse Religious Experiences (AREs) such as various forms of abuse (including sexual abuse), indoctrination, and financial exploitation. Our non-clinical interventions are administered under a core value where we acknowledge that there are many paths to healing. Within that, our offerings are designed to respond directly to the primary challenges we find to be common of survivors’ experiences while creating space for survivors to understand, own and share their own narratives.
Are there any books, apps, podcasts or blogs that help you do your best?
The Reclamation Collective has been interviewed on the following podcasts:
Born Again Again
The New Evangelicals
Dismantle Podcast
Full Mutuality
Modern Anarchy
Empowered Connection Podcast
Your Therapist Needs Therapy
The Lovely Becoming Podcast
Psych and the City
Two Therapists in Therapy
Pricing:
- Virtual Support Groups // $200-$400
- CEU Training // $50 per pre-recorded training
- Scholarships Available
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.reclamationcollective.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reclamationcollective/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/reclamationcollective/
