Is Religious Trauma Real?
As a mental health counsellor, I have witnessed clients who lean on their faith and church congregation as a support in good and bad times. The Church is able to provide a sense of belonging and support to a community for individuals. Unfortunately, this was not my experience. This article is not about bashing religion or telling people to stop going to church; it's a resource to help individuals who may have been harmed by religious beliefs and need support to heal. In this article, I will provide a definition for religious trauma, explain the importance of language, limitation on current research, and treatment modalities.
First, we need to define what trauma is. American Counseling Association definition of trauma is:
A strong emotional response to distressing events, including abuse, which involves harmful mistreatment. Both can lead to physical and emotional symptoms, affecting mental health in the long term.
When a person experiences a perceived overwhelming event that they cannot cope with; that is trauma; and when that experience involves religious beliefs and/or authorities in a religion; this is religious trauma.
Bottom line: If someone believes their experience is traumatic, then their experience is traumatic.
Feeling unseen and overwhelmed, many survivors quietly carry the weight of religious trauma long before they have the language for it.
When talking about trauma language matters.
In 2014, I was a Licensed Mental Health Counsellor, working in a community mental health agency and attended a training on trauma. The trainer discussed Big “T” traumas: war, rape. When we typically think of trauma, this is what we think of. Then the trainer discussed Little “T” traumas which included leaving a church.
During this training I realized that I had experienced religious trauma for the first time in my life.
In the psychology/counselling field, there has been an emphasis on becoming trauma informed and the importance of language. We still need to work on this- stop using the terms big “T”s and little “T”s. When we talk about little T’s, it devalues the person’s experience.
Trauma is trauma.
Limited Research and Resources
There is limited research on religious trauma and minimal discussion about this topic in the media, literature, and in the counselling field. I combed through the American Psychological Association and American Counselling Association websites to find a handful of articles. A great resource of information I found about religious trauma was from the Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families that clearly defined religious trauma and the lasting impacts on mental health, relationships and sense of identity on the 14 Traits of an Adult Child of a Dysfunctional Family and Religious Abuse Survivor (RAS version)ACA Religious Abuse Survivors – Inland Empire ACA Intergroup
1. We became isolated and afraid of people and authority figures.
2. We became approval seekers and lost our identity in the process.
3. We are frightened by angry people and any personal criticism.
4. We act compulsively and recreate our dysfunctional families with others to relive our abandonment needs.
5. We live life from the viewpoint of victims and we are attracted by that weakness in our love and friendship relationships.
6. We have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility and it is easier for us to be concerned with others rather than ourselves; this enables us not to look too closely at our own faults, etc.
7. We get guilt feelings when we stand up for ourselves instead of giving in to others.
8. We became addicted to excitement.
9. We confuse love and pity and tend to “love” people we can “pity” and “rescue.”
10. We have “stuffed” our feelings from our traumatic childhoods and have lost the ability to feel or express our feelings because it hurts so much (Denial).
11. We judge ourselves harshly and have a very low sense of self-esteem.
12. We are dependent personalities who are terrified of abandonment and will do anything to hold on to a relationship in order not to experience painful abandonment feelings, which we received from living with sick people who were never there emotionally for us.
13. Alcoholism is one of the responses to intergenerational trauma; and we became codependents and took on the characteristics of that condition even when we did not pick up the drink.
14. Adult children and religious abuse survivors are reactors rather than actors.
Wow, I had 11 out of 14 of these traits as a young adult and definitely would have benefited from this program. As a proponent of secular support programs, the information outlined above would be tremendously helpful for religious trauma survivors to learn vocabulary, educate themselves, and find a support group to process past harmful experiences.
Healing from religious trauma often begins with a single brave step — reaching out for support, even from the comfort of home.
Therapy
From a clinical point of view, I recommend reaching out to a trained trauma therapist who has at experience and uses a body-based therapy such as EMDR or Lifespan Integration After graduate school, I found a wonderful therapist who helped me process my religious trauma and learn how to form healthy attachments which I did not learn from my family of origin. While I was in therapy, I participated in sober support groups to build a sense of belonging and attended weekly yin yoga which helped to release trauma stuck in the body. There is not one way to heal from religious trauma, and you must find what works for you.
To heal from religious trauma and deconstruct harmful religious experiences, the following books have been helpful in my process. I hope they can be helpful in your journey to healing as well.
The Religious Trauma Survival Guide
References:
ACA Religious Abuse Survivors – Inland Empire ACA Intergroup
American Counseling Association. https://www.counseling.org/resources/topics/assessment-diagnosis-treatment/trauma-stress-related-disorders
National Child Traumatic Stress Network The National Child Traumatic Stress Network |
TRAUMA Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster
Walsh, Diane and Koch, Gillian. https://www.counseling.org/publications/counseling-today-magazine/article-archive/article/legacy/helping-clients-navigate-religious-trauma
