Therapy for Pastors & Ministry Leaders
Pastors need somewhere they don't have to be the pastor.
Ministry can leave very few places where you can be honest without protecting the church, managing someone else's response, or worrying about what your struggle might cost.
Kind Therapy offers a private, clinically grounded space with someone who understands ministry from the inside.
Meet your therapist
Hi, I'm Robert.
I spent more than fifteen years in ministry and pastoral counseling before becoming a therapist, so pastoral work is not abstract to me.
I'm Robert Russell, AMFT — an Associate Marriage and Family Therapist in Murfreesboro and the founder of Kind Therapy. My training is relational: distress usually lives in the patterns between people, not inside one person who is broken.
Sessions are conversations, paced by you. No script to follow, no version of yourself to perform. We start with what is actually happening, and go from there.
Robert Russell, AMFT — pre-licensed Marriage & Family Therapist, practicing under the supervision of Dr. Sara Hopkins, LMFT (TN license #928).
In person in Murfreesboro and online across Tennessee · Endorsed by 13 fellow clinicians on Psychology Today
01 — Recognition
Carrying everyone's weight with nowhere to put your own
You are the person others bring things to. When something is heavy for you, the list of people you can say it to without consequence gets very short.
That is not a character flaw or a failure of faith. It is a structural feature of the role, and it wears on people over time.
02 — What pastors carry
What often comes up
Ministry leaders describe a wide range of experiences. Some of these may fit; others will not.
- Exhaustion that a week off does not touch.
- Resentment toward people you are also genuinely trying to love.
- Emotional numbness, or preaching about things you cannot presently feel.
- Staff and board conflict you cannot discuss with anyone inside the church.
- Distance at home, and a family absorbing the cost of the role.
- Questions about faith that feel unsafe to say out loud.
- Shame, loneliness, and the sense of being known by many and understood by few.
- Uncertainty about whether to stay in ministry at all.
03 — Why it's complicated
Ordinary support isn't simple in ministry
Most people can talk to a friend. In ministry, friends, elders, staff, denominational contacts, and often family are all connected to the same institution — so honesty carries institutional risk alongside personal risk.
A therapist outside that system removes the calculation. Nothing you say has to be weighed against what it might cost the church, your position, or your reputation.
04 — A clear distinction
This is therapy
It is not church consulting, leadership coaching, or theological correction, and it is not advice about whether you should stay or leave. Those are real needs, and they are other people's work.
What happens here is clinical: understanding what you are carrying, how it is affecting you and the people close to you, and what could change.
05 — Why Robert
Someone who knows the inside of the role
Robert Russell spent more than fifteen years in pastoral counseling and church leadership before completing graduate training in marriage and family therapy at Trevecca Nazarene University. He is an Associate Marriage & Family Therapist (AMFT).
That means you can describe an elder meeting, a board dynamic, a resignation, or a Sunday you barely got through without translating any of it first.
06 — Faith
You decide how faith fits
Faith can be central to the work, present in the background, or left outside of it entirely. That is your call, and it can change over time.
For leaders who have lost or left a position, faith is often tangled up with vocation, income, community, and identity all at once. There is room to sort through that here without being steered toward a conclusion.
07 — Who this serves
Who this is for
This work is for people carrying a ministry role, in whatever form it takes.
- Lead and solo pastors
- Executive and associate pastors
- Ministry leaders and directors
- Church staff and their spouses
- Leaders in transition, on sabbatical, or recently out of a position
08 — Approach
How the work is done
The clinical work draws on relational frameworks, matched to what you are bringing rather than applied by formula.
Attachment-based therapy
Examines what it has cost to be the person everyone depends on, and what safety has looked like for you.
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT)
Useful where ministry strain has settled into the relationship with your spouse.
Parts-informed work
Distinguishes the pastor, the protector, and the critic from the person underneath the role.
Faith-integrated care, if you want it
Theology and practice can be part of the conversation without becoming the subject of correction.
09 — Logistics
Fees, length and location
- $150 per 50-minute session
- In person in Murfreesboro at River Tree Center, 212 Heritage Park Drive
- Online throughout Tennessee
- Free 15-minute consultation to see whether it is a fit
10 — Common questions
Questions people ask first
- Is this confidential?
- Yes. Therapy is confidential and protected by Tennessee law, with the narrow legal exceptions that apply to all therapy, such as imminent danger to yourself or someone else and mandatory reporting requirements. Your church, board, and denomination are not part of the process.
- Do I have to talk about faith?
- Only if you want to. Faith can be central, present, or set aside. You are not required to defend, explain, or perform your beliefs here.
- What if I'm considering leaving ministry?
- That can be part of the work without being the point of it. The goal is clarity about what you are experiencing and what you want, not a recommendation from me about whether to stay or go.
- What if I'm burned out but still functioning?
- Most ministry leaders who come in are still functioning. Waiting until you are not is common, and it is not a requirement.
- Do I have to be in crisis to come?
- No. Plenty of people start because something has been quietly wearing on them for a long time.
- Can we meet online?
- Yes. Online sessions are available anywhere in Tennessee, which also gives some leaders more privacy than driving to an office in their own community.
11 — Read more
Related Kind Therapy guides
These guides go further into two of the themes that come up most often in this work.
12 — Next step
Schedule a private consultation
A free 15-minute call, with no intake paperwork and nothing recorded anywhere your church can reach. It is simply a chance to say what is going on and ask whether this seems like the right place for it.
Kind Therapy · Murfreesboro, Tennessee and online across Tennessee. If you are experiencing a mental health emergency, call or text 988, or dial 911.