Support in your Exploration, Healing and Growth: NobleTree Therapy

NobleTree Therapy, a small group therapy practice located in St. Paul, works with a variety of treatment areas, including relationship concerns, religious trauma, spiritual abuse, grief and loss, identity development, attachment, family systems, depression, adoption, trauma, and anxiety through individual, couples and family therapy.

The name NobleTree is rooted in the idea that every person carries wisdom, depth, and complexity, shaped by the many storms they have endured — just like a tree’s internal rings resemble the experiences that shape us, says Kendra Snyder, founder of NobleTree. On a simpler note, “NobleTree” was the name of a preexisting coffee shop from when Snyder used to live in Chicago.

“This idea that we each have everything that we need within ourselves and we don’t need to look outside of ourselves to find ourselves again, or to find completion, is beautiful,” Snyder says.

With Snyder as the founder and no intentions of expanding, the four-person team brings unique experiences and identities to the space and its clients. For Snyder, she is going on 14 years in practice, running the group and working as a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist providing in-depth psychotherapy with specializations in attachment, trauma, identity development, grief and loss, as well as religious trauma and spiritual abuse.

Lee Start, a Licensed Alcohol and Drug Counselor and Independent Clinical Social Worker, says they specialize in religious trauma and spiritual abuse, especially at the intersection of queer and trans identity.

Snyder and Start knew one another from working at a local nonprofit, Reclamation Collective, that works to help people with religious trauma and spiritual harm.

Trauma-informed and body-based therapist Sarah Berge, with experience as an inner religious chaplain, has been in practice since 2011 and enjoys integrating spirituality and therapy.

Before this team started, it was 2016, and Snyder was working out of her own private practice in Denver when she started having people who wanted to work on their experiences within religious and spiritual contexts.

“At that time in my life, I had gone through my own departure and healing from harmful spiritual and religious practices, and it felt like I was ready to support people in that arena,” Snyder says.

Just a few years later, Snyder moved to Minnesota, co-founding Reclamation Collective, a nonprofit that holds space for those navigating religious trauma through non-therapeutic support.

After practicing by herself for six years, the demand for therapists specializing in religious trauma and spiritual abuse, alongside depth-oriented therapy, led to the formation of NobleTree Therapy. For nearly four-and-a-half years, Snyder and the NobleTree team have focused on long-term work, specializing in in-depth psychotherapy.

“I never thought that I would start a group,” Snyder says. “I was pretty adamant that I never would, but then it just kind of happened where people were expressing a ton of interest and needing someone to specialize in this.”

Start says there is a shared language within the queer community, and NobleTree is fluent in that vocabulary — making it so that the people within the queer community aren’t being tokenized and doing extra work for their therapist.

Pressures surrounding the revolving question in therapy, such as “Is this a good fit?” are combated by providing free consultations, giving people the opportunity to ask questions and freedom to choose a provider that is the best fit, Berge says.

NobleTree’s structure as a private pay therapy practice allows it to focus on client experience, needs and goals without centering pathology.

 “While still honoring diagnoses and doing everything ethically, it’s nice to not have certain constraints,” Berge says. “Specifically in the industry that is the mental health industry, that really, I think, problematicizes and pathologizes people, and often isn’t safe for certain populations.”

“It’s important to recognize that therapy can feel similar to dynamics where people experience harm, whether it’s in a religious community, church or cult — because there is still a power dynamic present,” Start says.

The NobleTree team pays special attention to client autonomy, choice and centering the client’s knowledge of themselves to aid in safety within this unique therapeutic relationship.

“Supporting folks, we’re honoring that autonomy and seeing what that can feel like for them in a healthy way, is really powerful,” Start says.

According to Start, the intersection of queer and trans identity alongside religious trauma is intensified, and having a therapeutic support that understands these dynamics has a large impact on people’s ability to not only survive, but also thrive as the most authentic version of themselves.

Snyder says that while NobleTree supports people with a variety of concerns, including religious trauma and spiritual abuse, it is not an anti-spiritual practice, which she believes is a strong and polarizing stance.

“I believe any sort of environment that is dogmatic in any way is actually perpetuating harm. We’re actually then taking away people’s freedom of choice and autonomy to know who they are and know what fits them,” Snyder says. “NobleTree is affirming of spiritual practice, as long as it doesn’t harm self or harm another person.”

If you are interested in exploring working with a provider at NobleTree Therapy, please visit their website at www.nobletreetherapy.com or email [email protected]