Therapy for Religious Trauma & Spiritual Abuse in Tennessee
If you have spent any amount of time in a religious or spiritual setting, especially if you were a child or teenager, you may have experienced an adverse religious experience (ARE).
An adverse religious experience is “Any experience of a religious belief, practice, or structure that undermines an individual’s sense of safety or autonomy and/or negatively impacts their physical, social, emotional, relational, or psychological well-being” (Anderson).
If you’re on this page reading this, you or someone you know has probably had an adverse religious experience.
More than 1/3 of Americans have had at least one ARE. And it’s impossible for ARE’s to not impact our mental health.
Adverse Religious Experiences (ARE’s)
ARE’s can include experiences related to:
the fear of hell or eternal conscious torment,
purity culture and emphasis on virginity,
altar calls and scary sermons,
spanking and corporal punishment,
forced vulnerability in a group setting,
and patriarchy and oppression.
Adverse religious experiences, like adverse childhood experiences, often lead to both physical and mental health problems like chronic illness and pain, autoimmune conditions, sexual dysfunction, depression, anxiety, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, paranoia, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Complex or Chronic PTSD, and more.
We can experience almost any event or series of events as traumatic if it overwhelms our ability to cope with, escape, and process it correctly. Whether you experienced a major event that might qualify as an ARE, or you spent a portion of your life (especially as a child/teen) in an environment that facilitated ARE’s (even if most of the people were really nice!), it shaped the way you are as a person today in possibly very harmful ways.
Religious Trauma
The simplest definition of religious or spiritual trauma is a “painful experience perpetrated by family, friends, community members inside of religion” (Pasquale).
Often, the trauma is caused by “something that the person closely associates with religion or spirituality, is inflicted by someone who is thought to be a stand-in for the Divine, is said to be justified by the spiritual practice or religious belief, or occurs because of religious or spiritual practice” (Panchuk, quoted by McBride).
Religious trauma can be the result of being indoctrinated into an authoritarian religious community, and it can be the result of leaving such a community.
How Can Therapy Help With Religious Trauma?
Survivors of religious trauma and spiritual abuse can benefit from any trauma therapy, but especially when it is tailored to their unique experiences. If you have (or think you may have) experienced any adverse religious/spiritual experiences, religious/spiritual abuse, or religious/spiritual trauma, help is available.
Because of the uniquely psychologically damaging nature of religious/spiritual trauma, it’s vital to work with a therapist who has training in this area. I have specific training and education around helping people heal from adverse religious/spiritual experiences as well as complex trauma. I also have lived experience of growing up in a religious setting that I had to leave for my own well-being and spend time healing from.
I would be honored to help you process your experiences with, and heal from, adverse religious/spiritual experiences, abuse, or trauma.
Therapy with me is a safe space to be questioning, venting, grieving, deconstructing or deconverting, healing from, and even re-integrating religion/spirituality.
The people in power who told you that you were bad, sinful, and worthless don’t have the final say.
Your experience of your body as shameful, broken, and dangerous doesn’t have to last your whole life.
Your desire for a loving relationship doesn’t have to be suppressed just because of the gender(s) of the people you’re attracted to.
Your sense of connection to something outside of yourself, a supportive community, and hope doesn’t have to be shattered forever.
Religious-trauma-informed therapy can bring you to a new space of liberation and integration.
References
Anderson, Laura (2023). When Religion Hurts You.
McBride, Hillary. Holy Hurt podcast, Ep. 1: “The House is Haunted.” July 2023. Transcript can be accessed at https://holyhurtpodcast.com/ep-01-the-house-is-haunted/.
Panchuk, Michelle (2018). The shattered spiritual self: a philosophical exploration of religious trauma. Res Philosophica, 95(3), 505-530.
Pasquale, Teresa (2015). Sacred Wounds: A Path to Healing from Spiritual Trauma.