Faith-sensitive horse-assisted coaching at a força, in The Hague, Leiden and from 2027 in Tomar, for those whose faith or sense of meaning is part of their recovery. No pastoral care, no prayer unless you want it. The horse makes no distinction: it responds to your nervous system, not to your theology.
For some people faith is a source of strength. For others a source of confusion, shame or pain. Both are welcome here.
In my practice I work with people for whom faith, or the loss of it, plays a part in their recovery. That can be explicit: prayer, scripture, questions about God and suffering.
Or implicit: a longing for something greater, a search for meaning.
Working faith-sensitively means that I make room for faith if that matters to you. I impose nothing: no prayers, no scripture, unless you want it. What I do is take seriously what faith does to your nervous system, your identity and your relationships. I don't separate the “spiritual” from the “physical”. It is one system.
This is not pastoral care. I am a coach, not a minister. But I understand the language. And I know how faith and trauma can be interwoven.
I often work with high-masking individuals from a faith background who are struggling with burnout, trauma or neurodivergence. People who feel unseen in mainstream mental health care (“my psychologist doesn't understand my faith”) and equally unseen in their faith community (“they don't understand my trauma”).
I also work with people who are doubting their faith and want a safe place to talk about it. And with anyone for whom meaning is part of recovery, whatever their background.
A session with horses is always body-based. Faith enters when it is relevant.
A horse that invites you to stand still, and in that you recognise something of surrender. A moment of connection with the horse that feels like prayer. A boundary you learn to set, including towards your faith community. A psalm of lament that puts into words exactly what you feel.
The horse makes no distinction. It responds to your nervous system, not to your theology.
Neurodivergent people process the world differently — more intensely, in more layers, with a stronger sensitivity to what moves beneath the surface. The very traits that sometimes make daily functioning harder can, in a spiritual context, become a way in. Narzisi and Muccio (2021) describe sensory hypersensitivity and reduced top-down cognitive filtering as a phenomenological a priori that predisposes people to spiritual experience — not in a religious but in an experiential sense: being consciously present in the moment, without the usual cognitive buffers that dampen that contact. This aligns with findings from neurotheology (Newberg) that spiritual experiences correspond to specific neurological profiles which occur more often in neurodivergent people.
Arora (2025) describes in the Journal of Spirituality in Mental Health how neurodivergent populations develop unique spiritual expressions that do not always fit within conventional religious frameworks, and therefore remain both unrecognised and unsupported. That has direct clinical implications: experiences of faith in neurodivergent people can be more intense, but also more vulnerable — both positively and negatively. Religious communities are often built on implicit social expectations: the right body language, the right emotional register, the right way of taking part. For someone who masks heavily or is sensorially sensitive, a church service, prayer group or retreat can therefore trigger survival mode sooner than spiritual connection.
This risk is not hypothetical. Research into religious trauma among late-diagnosed autistic people shows how masking behaviour in religious contexts raises internalising stress, and how punishment for behaviour that is simply neurodivergent — stimming, social avoidance, processing differently — can leave deep wounds around faith. At the same time, research by Biggs and Carter (2016) shows that strength of faith among autistic young people is significantly associated with higher quality of life in psychological and social domains, provided the faith community makes room for their particular way of taking part.
Working faith-sensitively means acknowledging those layers. Not adapting the spirituality, but the space around it. Fewer implicit demands on participation. More room for silence, for one's own rhythm, for an experience of faith that does not necessarily have words or social visibility. Recent research suggests that sensory processing sensitivity (SPS) is a mediating variable in the relationship between religiosity and mental health: people with high SPS experience religion more intensely, with greater potential for both healing and harm. That makes careful, informed guidance not a luxury but a necessity.
Bibliography
Arora, A. (2025). Spirituality, neurodiversity, and mental health: Understanding unique spiritual expressions among neurodivergent populations. Journal of Spirituality in Mental Health. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/19349637.2025.2548539
Biggs, E. E., & Carter, E. W. (2016). Quality of life for inclusive youth with intellectual disability in faith communities. Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, 54(1), 13–26.
Narzisi, A., & Muccio, R. (2021). A neuro-phenomenological perspective on the autism phenotype. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 12, 691426. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8307909/
Newberg, A. B. (2010). Principles of neurotheology. Ashgate.
Underwood, L. G., & van Dyke, C. J. (2024). Religiosity/spirituality and mental health: The moderating role of sensory processing sensitivity. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-024-04176-x
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