“There are a host of things [that could be] said which would have comforted a woman who herself, or her friend, had experienced a pastor exercising ‘some undue authority.’”
There are few things that drive me battier that the idea (which I vividly recall first encountering over 30 years ago) that because someone has experienced bad fatherhood, what they need is no fatherhood (including no mention of God’s Fatherhood). This is just a subset: the notion that an experience of bad pastoral authority will be mitigated by no pastoral authority whatsoever. It’s like saying that because someone was the victim of medical malpractice that made her condition worse, she shouldn’t have to endure the treatment of any other doctors. As if that will mean she is magically cured! Argh! As someone who has experienced abdication and/or abuse from father, brothers, and more than one shepherd, I vehemently resent the notion that what I need is zero authority. Grrr. 
(OK…I’m done. We now return you to your regularly scheduled cheerful Valerie. 
)