Breaking the Cycle of Rumination and Worry
Do you stay up at night worrying and ruminating? Discover psychology for Christians that addresses rumination and worry. An Australian Christian psychologist explains schema therapy, the inner critic, and faith-sensitive ways to find freedom from thought loops and live with greater peace.
Exploring the Impact of Moral Injury: Strategies for Promoting Resilience in High-Stress Environments
Discover how moral injury, PTSD, and occupational burnout impact mental health in high-stress professions. Learn about the importance of psychological safety within workplaces and ways to recover from moral injury
Disrupted Attachment, Control, and Emotion Dysregulation: A Path to Violence in Netflix's Adolescence
Netflix’s Adolescence offers a powerful lens on disrupted attachment, emotional dysregulation, and controlling behaviour in young people. Drawing on attachment theory and published research, this article explores how insecure and disorganised attachment, online environments, and unmet emotional needs can contribute to instability, aggression, and relational harm during adolescence.
The Failure Schema: When You're Convinced You Will Never Measure Up
Do you dismiss your achievements, fear being found out, or feel like you'll never truly measure up? The Failure schema may be driving that persistent sense of inadequacy — discover where it comes from and how schema therapy can help.
What Adult Grooming Is and how it overlaps with Coercive Control
Understand how grooming operates in adult, faith, and professional settings. A faith-sensitive psychologist explains the psychology of grooming across contexts, manipulation, power imbalance, and recovery after spiritual or relational betrayal.
Scrupulosity and Attachment to God: Why Early Bonds Can Make Faith, Life and God Feel Scary
Scrupulosity—religious OCD—can make faith feel like constant fear of disappointing God. Psychologist Kylie Walls explains that these struggles often stem from deeper attachment patterns shaped in childhood and reinforced by harmful spiritual environments. When leaders are controlling or shaming, the nervous system may learn to view God the same way. Healing is possible with supportive, evidence-based therapy.
Spiritual Abuse: Understanding, Recovering, and escaping the invisible cage
Spiritual abuse and coercive control can leave deep psychological, emotional, and spiritual scars. This article explains how manipulation, misuse of scripture, and clergy exploitation erode autonomy and faith. Learn how spiritual abuse impacts identity, mental health, and relationships—and why independent, trauma-informed care and Christian psychology support are essential for recovery, resilience, and healing in faith contexts.
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.
