Religious Trauma, Spiritual Abuse and Cult Recovery: Treating the Trauma Caused by Adverse Religious Experiences

CPD

Planning Committee Disclosure - No relevant relationships

All members of the PESI, Inc. planning committee have provided disclosures of financial relationships with ineligible organizations and any relevant non-financial relationships prior to planning content for this activity. None of the committee members had relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies or other potentially biasing relationships to disclose to learners.  For speaker disclosures, please see the faculty biography.

Handouts

Speaker

Anna Clark Miller, LPC-S Related seminars and products

Empathy Paradigm Therapy

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Anna Clark Miller, LPC-S, grew up on the mission field and spent her early adulthood working and volunteering in churches. As a counseling grad student, however, she became aware of her body’s trauma responses and started connecting them with past experiences in highly controlling religious communities. Today she specializes in treating survivors of religious trauma. Her book Religious Trauma Survival Guide: Education and Recovery for Survivors and Professionals, offers a tangible path to healing from high-control religious experiences. She is also the host of the podcast, Martyr, She Wrote for religious trauma survivors who are looking for education, empathy, and recovery. Each episode features an interview with a survivor or expert on topics including abusive religious leaders, religious OCD, BIPOC and queer experiences, clergy religious trauma, and more.

 

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Anna Clark Miller has employment relationships with Empathy Paradigm Therapy, Dallas Therapy Collective, and Empathy Paradigm. She receives royalties as a published author and is a podcast host for Martyr, She Wrote. Anna Clark Miller receives a speaking honorarium and recording royalties from PESI, Inc. She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Anna Clark Miller has no relevant non-financial relationships.

Additional Info

Access never expires for this product.

For a more detailed outline that includes times or durations of time, if needed, please contact cepesi@pesi.com.

Objectives

1. Identify the importance of addressing clients’ spiritual struggles.
2. Examine how religion can be both a coping resource and source of stress and trauma.
3. Identify how the restrictions and coercive tactics associated with high control environments can lead to mental health disorders.
4. Utilize interview questions to get information about a client’s exposure to spiritual abuse.
5. Choose interventions to provide culturally competent care to clients who have experienced religious trauma.
6. Determine gaps and limitations in the existing research on religious trauma.

Outline

Religious Trauma: Core Concepts and Characteristics

• The historical context of religious trauma
• Define religious trauma, spiritual abuse and related terms
• Identify characteristics and distinguishing from other forms of trauma
• How religious trauma shapes one’s sense of identity, self-worth, and beliefs

High Control Dynamics in Religious or Cult Contexts and Their Traumatic Impacts

• Power and control within religious contexts and their implications on trauma
• The cycle of spiritual abuse
• Control mechanisms and their psychological aftermath
• The tactics of thought reform
• When they leave: spiritual crisis, isolation, and stigmatization

Signs, Symptoms, Screening, and Assessment

• Religious Trauma Syndrome: the components of RTS
• Behavioral, emotional, and psychological signs
• Spiritual Abuse Questionnaire: assess for the presence and extent of spiritual abuse
• Interview techniques to elicit clients’ experiences of religious trauma
• Stages of religious identity development
• Analyze case studies to apply assessment concepts

Religious Trauma Treatment Guide: Key Considerations and Approaches

• Using Judith Herman’s stages of recovery as a roadmap for treatment
• Channel countertransference into insight, growth, and therapeutic breakthroughs
• Explore your own religious/spiritual experiences and biases
• Cultural dynamics and culturally relevant support
• Mastering the balance of self-disclosure and therapeutic boundaries
• Explore complex spiritual grief
• Treatment approaches from IFS, EMDR, somatic strategies, and more to help clients:
  • Heal from binary thinking
  • Explore survival strategies for these overwhelming environments
  • Develop self-compassion
  • Process early negative beliefs that were supported by harmful doctrines
  • Connect with the wisdom of their bodies
  • Restore shattered boundaries and form healthier relationships
• Research, limitations, and treatment risks
• Indications and contraindications

Tailoring Your Therapy to Diverse Identities:

• Working with specific populations recovering from religious trauma
• Address the unique experiences of women
• BIPOC: the intersection of religious trauma and racial identity
• LGBTQ+: Navigating the complexities
• Recognize the needs of neurodiverse clients

Target Audience

• Counsellors
• Social Workers
• Psychologists
• Addiction Counsellors
• Art Therapists
• Marriage & Family Therapists
• Nurses
• Psychiatrists
• Physicians
• Other Mental Health Professionals