Adverse Religious Experiences and Trauma
Experiences Which have left you feeling lost
What is an adverse religious experience or religious trauma?
Generally speaking, many people have great experiences within their religious communities and find important meaning in their faith. However, this isn’t the case for everyone. Unfortunately, many people share a number of common detrimental experiences related to their faith or religious communities, which have led to questioning and/or negative consequences in their lives. Here are some common examples of an adverse religious experience:
Physical, emotional, or sexual abuse that is perpetrated by a person in a position of power within the faith. Some communities may also choose to minimize or deny the events when exposed or participate in retaliation toward the survivor.
Persistently being shamed for thoughts, feelings, desires, or behaviors which are viewed as “sinful”, “wrong”, etc.
Experiencing invalidation or victim-blaming when expressing negative feelings about your abuser, especially if that person is a family member or a prominent member of the community.
Consistently observing members of the community (especially those with a position of power) violate the accepted values and norms, or being pushed to violate your own values in the name of following the faith (moral injury).
Abuse that is justified through faith-based beliefs (for example, forced conversion therapy for LBGTQIA+).
Shame related to sexuality. Often includes a person being told that their bodies are impure, should be hidden, are the cause of others’ negative behaviors, etc (purity culture).
Extreme isolation from the world outside of the faith, portraying outsiders as villains or preventing those within the faith from having contact with the outside world.
Sources: BEAM, Religious Trauma
In other words…
Adverse Religious Experiences: 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, sexual, or psychological well-being. These experiences have the potential of resulting in religious trauma.
Source: Global Center for Religious Research
Religious Trauma: The physical, emotional, or psychological response to religious beliefs, practices, or structures that is experienced by an individual as overwhelming or disruptive and has lasting adverse effects on a person’s physical, mental, social, emotional, or spiritual well-being.
Source: Religious Trauma Institute
How can these experiences impact someone?
While religious trauma doesn’t have its own separate diagnosis, a number of common symptoms can be seen anecdotally among people who have experienced it. These can include:
Persistent self-invalidation (“I shouldn’t feel this way”, “It’s wrong that I have this desire”, “Good people forgive their abusers”) or self-hatred
Overwhelming feelings of fear, shame, guilt, sadness, grief, or depression
Challenges with setting healthy boundaries, finding and engaging in healthy relationships
Challenges with finding a community, belonging, or fitting into “mainstream” society
Perfectionism, anxiety, indecision
Sexual dysfunction, body-image issues
Sources: BEAM, Religious Trauma
If I’m dealing with this how can therapy help me?
Adverse religious experiences and trauma can be difficult to tackle on your own. Often people with religious trauma grew up in the culture or spent a very long time immersed in it. Because of this, it can be hard to identify tools that you might use to move forward. Every client is different and their reactions to their adverse religious experience will be different as well. However, often therapy will start with helping clients:
Acknowledge the experience and the negative impacts the experience has had on your life (how it changed your beliefs, actions, thoughts, emotions, etc.)
Work to improve your sense of self-validation (this happened to me, and I’m allowed to have feelings about it)
Clarifying what actually matters to you and how you can start to move forward
Decide if you would like to still practice your faith, engage in a different community, or if you would like to take a step back from religion altogether (in secular/non-religious counseling you don’t have to worry about being pushed one way or another - we offer the space for you to choose the best path for yourself)
