Grace Brindle is a therapist (LLPC) in Marquette. She is a UP Native and has spent most of her life, both childhood and adulthood, navigating religious spaces. In her own journey she has learned how confusing and painful it can be to be allowed to name the truth of our stories, especially the parts of our story that pertain to Adverse Religious Experiences. She has also learned how freeing it can be to let personal stories be heard in safe spaces and with wise guides. She is a Core Facilitator for the Allender Center's Narrative Focused Trauma Care Program which addresses the harm of spiritual abuse (among other traumatic and/or harmful experiences). Grace feels most alive and free in these safe spaces. I look forward to our journey together.
Brad Pickens grew up on his family farm in southern Indiana, where he spent eighteen years as the director of a spiritual retreat center that specialized in walking with people who had experienced religious trauma and spiritual abuse. Brad spent his formative years within an evangelical religious setting before branching out to other faith traditions. He has significant experience across the spectrum of conservative and progressive faith communities and he earned a Ph.D. in Literature, Theology, and the Arts, which he uses to help provide context and meaning to the stories we carry with us . He now lives in Marquette and works as an Episcopal priest.
Lanni Lantto is co-founder of U.P. Wild, which has become a spiritual home for those coming out of adverse religious experiences with 8 locations across the U.P. She was raised in Marquette within an inherited church of her ancestors and has gone through a lot of religious dogmatic deconstruction in order to sustain the positive holy experiences she encountered as a child. Lanni is qualified in that she has been a client at residential and outpatient trauma centers and through her experiences now volunteers at Great Lakes Recovery Center facilitating a group for those recovering from the effects of growing up in an addictive or otherwise dysfunctional family environment.
