The Pull in Two Directions: Enmeshment, Obligation, and the Longing to Be Free
Do you find yourself cancelling plans for family, editing what you say around your parents, or feeling simultaneously guilty for staying and guilty for pulling away? This article explores the psychology of enmeshment, the two competing parts of self it produces, and what healing can look like.
The Enmeshment/Undeveloped Self Schema: When You Don't Know Where You End and Others Begin
Do you struggle to know what you want, or feel your sense of self gets lost in your closest relationships? The Enmeshment schema may explain why — discover where it comes from and how schema therapy can help.
When Control Is the Trauma: Understanding Coercive Control and Its Psychological Impact
Coercive control is a form of violence that can cause profound psychological harm. This article explores coercive control trauma, explaining how repeated patterns of control erode autonomy, identity, and safety over time. Drawing on research, it examines why coercive control is often missed and how understanding its impact can support recovery.
Soft Start-Ups in Relationships: Gottman Relationship Therapy Provides a Key to Better Communication
This article explains how soft start-ups—a concept from Dr. John Gottman’s relationship research—can help couples raise concerns without triggering defensiveness or conflict. By expressing feelings and needs gently rather than with blame or criticism, partners can protect emotional connection and work together more effectively. Using insights from Schema Therapy for Couples, the article also explores the deeper emotional triggers that lead to harsh communication and offers practical strategies, examples, and reflection questions to help build healthier, more connected conversations.
Family Estrangement: Grappling with the Pain and Confusion
A exploration of family estrangement, faith, trauma, religious trauma and boundaries — examining when distance becomes necessary and how healing can occur with compassion and discernment.
From Defensiveness to Dialogue: Tools for Healthier Interactions
Defensiveness is a common response to criticism, but it can harm relationships, families, workplaces, and faith communities. This article explores types of defensiveness, psychoanalytic roots, and impacts on communication. Drawing on John Gottman’s research and Schema Therapy, it provides practical tools to move from defensiveness to dialogue, strengthen emotional safety, and build healthier connections at home, work, and in spiritual settings.
“Why Am I Like This in Relationships?” A Look at Attachment and Emotional Reactivity
Attachment theory explains why we react the way we do in relationships. This article explores secure, anxious, avoidant, and disorganised attachment styles, their links to emotional reactivity and conflict, and how therapy helps create healthier connections. Learn how early caregiving shapes intimacy, trust, and emotion regulation, and discover practical ways to heal insecure attachment patterns for stronger, more resilient relationships.
When Love Becomes an Invisible Cage: Recognising the Signs of Coercive Control and Emotional Abuse, and Religious Abuse
Coercive control and emotional abuse often begin subtly—masked as concern, faith, or guidance—before escalating into an invisible cage of fear, guilt, and isolation. This article explores the signs of coercive control, emotional and spiritual abuse, and the devastating psychological impacts. Learn how to recognise red flags in relationships, why early intervention matters, and how professional Christian psychology support can provide healing, autonomy, and recovery from abuse.
About KylieHi, I’m Kylie Walls, a registered psychologist and the founder of Refuge Psychology.
My practice is shaped by professional experience, research, and a long-standing commitment to supporting people navigating complex emotional, relational, and faith-related experiences. I have worked with individuals from a wide range of backgrounds and faith traditions, and I have also held volunteer and professional roles within church and ministry contexts. These experiences have deepened my understanding of the unique dynamics that can arise when wellbeing, identity, and faith intersect — and the importance of care that is both sensitive and clinically grounded.
I have published research on control, attachment, and emotional regulation, and have previously worked as a Domestic and Family Violence Advisor within a faith-based organisation. I began my career as a teacher and later spent time working in photography, but my ongoing interest in people — their stories, relationships, and inner worlds — led me into psychological practice. I bring both professional and lived experience to my work in a way that is clinically grounded, respectful, and client-led.
Areas of Interest
I offer support to adults who may be:
Managing general mental health concerns such as anxiety, depression, stress, grief, or life transitions — whether or not these are connected to faith or ministry.
Navigating confusing, painful, or high-pressure experiences in church or ministry environments, including those recovering from spiritual abuse, coercion, or high-control faith settings, including cults.
Pastors, ministry leaders, and caregivers experiencing stress, burnout, role strain, or relational challenges within ministry or leadership roles.
Experiencing domestic and family violence, coercive control, or destructive relationship patterns — whether in intimate partnerships, family, community, or faith-based contexts.
Experiencing scrupulosity / Religious OCD or distress related to rigid or fear-based beliefs.
Facing workplace challenges, including bullying, power imbalances, role strain, or organisational conflict, and the emotional toll these experiences can create.
Couples seeking support around communication, connection, conflict patterns, recovery after relational harm, infidelity, or navigating values and expectations within relationships.
Inclusive and Client-Led Care
While I have a particular interest in supporting people from faith backgrounds, I welcome clients from all backgrounds. My focus is on providing compassionate, trauma-informed, and ethical psychological care that honours each person’s values, experiences, and goals for wellbeing.
This is a collaborative space, shaped by your needs and values.
