A person's religious upbringing can have as much influence on them as their family of origin, shaping how they see and interact with the world around them. Choosing to leave that religion or faith community is often a deeply painful experience, with many ripple effects. Even after leaving the group or beliefs behind, it can be harder to leave the thought patterns behind, resulting in continued pain and confusion. In this post, we'll cover the basics of religious trauma and how therapy can help survivors of religious trauma deconstruct their experiences, find new meaning, and rebuild their value system.
What is Religious Trauma?
Religious trauma syndrome, while not yet a formal diagnosis, is a widely accepted concept among clinicians and religious scholars. Similar to complex trauma disorders, religious trauma can impact a person emotionally, relationally, cognitively, sexually, spiritually, and physically.
According to Dr. Marlene Winell, psychologist and religious trauma expert:
“Religious Trauma Syndrome is the condition experienced by people who are struggling with leaving an authoritarian, dogmatic religion and coping with the damage of indoctrination. It is a function of both the chronic abuses of harmful religion and the impact of severing one’s connection with one’s faith group.”
What Causes Religious Trauma?
Often, individuals experiencing religious trauma were members of high-control (a.k.a. high-demand) religions or religious groups. These groups are most often defined as exerting control over individual members. You can often identify high-control religions by the following:
Authoritarian Leadership – The spiritual leaders may avoid or dismiss open dialogue, and their authority is treated as unquestionable.
Exclusive Truth Claims – The leaders make claims such as, “Only WE have and know the truth about the world.”
Fear-Based Messaging – Behavioral adherence is reinforced through fear of hell, punishment, and other divine negative consequences.
Behavior Control – There are strict rules governing how people in the group behave, such as clothing, relationships, sex, education, diet, money, and more.
Shame Manipulation – High-control religious groups often use and abuse self-surveillance and a person’s feelings of unworthiness to maintain control over them.
Information Control – It’s common in high-control religion to restrict certain outside materials such as movies, books, or music.
Isolationism – Members within the group discourage contact with outsiders or “non-believers,” unless it is for the explicit purpose of proselytizing and converting the outsiders into believers.
Shunning – Members who question authority or teaching or those that leave are shunned, ostracized, and demonized.
Identity Suppression – Being part of the group becomes members’ core identity, erasing other identities one might have or interests that fall outside the accepted group norms.
(See further: Hassan, 2015; Winell, 2011)
All of these markers of high-control religious groups are ingredients that contribute to religious trauma and can create the environment for adverse religious experiences, such as:
Sexual and/or emotional abuse by a spiritual leader
Physical and emotional abuse from a parent or caregiver to "break a child's will"
Discrimination, rejection, and/or conversion therapy based on a person's LGBTQIA+ identity
Purity culture and sexual shame
Patriarchal control
Homeschooling, hyper-religious education, and even educational neglect based on gender
Being forced to give up a skill, hobby, sport, or other interest because it doesn't fit religious expectations
Forced "faith-healing" for disability or illness
Medical neglect due to religious beliefs
Coercive leadership
Breakups with romantic partners or friends over religious differences
Fear of hell, rapture, or apocalypse
Signs You Might Have Religious Trauma
As with other types of trauma, religious trauma can trigger all sorts of symptoms that can make it hard to function in daily life, connect with others, and feel at peace with oneself. A few common examples include:
Cognitive symptoms, such as difficulty making decisions, frequent dissociation, or identity confusion. In high-control religion, people are taught (often from a very young age) to suppress their emotions, intuition, and ability to think critically about things in deference to the spiritual authority of the group, or of a higher power. Even after leaving the high-control religion behind, it takes work to exercise those skills and rebuild self-trust.
Emotional symptoms, such as anxiety, panic attacks, depression, grief, shame, loneliness, and more. Leaving behind high-control religion can trigger deep, complex emotions as a person processes their experiences and grieves how they impacted their life, from relationships that are forever changed, to belief systems that caused harm.
Functional symptoms, such as sleep disturbance (including nightmares), eating issues, sexual dysfunction, substance abuse, and somatic complaints (e.g., pain, fatigue, etc.) Even after leaving a religion or faith community, the deeply embedded messages of shame, self-loathing, and fear can be difficult to overcome and can manifest in physical ways.
Social or cultural symptoms, such as difficulty building strong relationships, struggles with fitting in and belonging, fractured relationships with family and friends, and problems assimilating into mainstream society. Who am I without the religious beliefs and community I spent so many years in? How do I help people understand what I've been through? These are the kinds of questions that survivors of religious trauma often ask themselves after they've left high-control religion because changing their beliefs often comes with relational consequences. Survivors often have to rebuild community and interests from scratch, which can feel painful and isolating.
It is also common to experience employment and financial issues after leaving high-control religion, especially if someone built their career inside of that community, such as a minister.
How Therapy Can Help You Heal from Religious Trauma
In therapy, your therapist can work with you to process your experiences with high-control religion and deconstruct what happened to you, and what it means. If you're familiar with the concept of religious trauma, you've probably already begun this deconstruction process. Yet healing from religious trauma is more than deconstructing; reconstructing your sense of self is just as important. Your therapist can work with you to:
Find new meaning in life
Rebuild your own sense of morals and ethics
Learn how to say yes to things, not just no
Navigate relationships with conservative family
Explore dating, sex, and pleasure with confidence and peace
Establish boundaries and privacy
Build healthy conflict resolution skills
Religious Trauma Therapy in Chicago
Whether you were a true believer or were always struggling to prove your faithfulness, you didn't deserve the harm that religious trauma caused you. As you work through the process of deconstructing and reconstructing your sense of self, our team at ECC is here to offer support and compassion. We'll match you with the right therapist and therapy approach to help you find new meaning and build healthy connections with the world around you.
ABOUT ECC:
Empowered Connections Counseling is a practice of licensed therapists providing quality, multidisciplinary counseling for adults, children & teens, relationships, and families in Chicago and across Illinois. Whether by in-person session or via telehealth, we work with clients to find the therapist and treatment methods that best suit their needs. Connect meaningfully with your life by booking an appointment today.