What is Religious Trauma?

Let’s first start off with defining trauma. Trauma is anything that happens “too much, too fast” or "too often". This overwhelms our nervous systems and we are made to feel temporarily overwhelmed, which initiates our survival mechanisms of fight, flight, freeze, or fawn.

Religious environments can be intense and full of emotion. When these intense and emotional environments become coercive, overpowering, manipulating, and rigid, they become abusive and traumatic. 

Religious and spiritual experiences are meant to be, above all else, safe spaces for communing with others and connecting over a shared belief system. When these congregations become spaces where the followers experience psychological abuse, shameful messages around their personhood or emotions, and live with a constant fear of punishment from a god figure, then the followers begin to lose a sense of autonomy, ability to ask questions or leave the community when they feel uncomfortable.

How Does Religious Trauma Happen?

Religious trauma can happen from a number of different experiences within a church or spiritual community, whether it’s the messages being relentlessly taught or the interactions that one has with the leadership or people in power.  

Here are some examples of things that are oppressive and potentially traumatic for members of a spiritual community: 

• A religious leader creating too much fear about congregants trusting government or outside sources of authority

• Churches requiring financial participation or sacrifice in order for people to have access to the same “blessings” from God.

• Leaders in positions of power coercing or forcing young members to participate in religious ceremonies and using fear of hell or punishment as a tactic for convincing. 

• The main motivation tactic in the community is guilt, shame, and fear. 

• Using scripture to humiliate or embarrass the members of a congregation. 

What are the symptoms of religious trauma? 

The impact of religious trauma can be pervasive and it’s important to get the support of a therapist if you believe that you’ve survived religious trauma. Someone that has experienced religious trauma might experience symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and you can read more about that here.

There are some additional symptoms that can happen after religious abuse: 

• Impeded development.  This can include sexual, social, relational, and emotional development.  Sometimes survivors speak of feeling “really behind” their peers in school and finding themselves in adult relationships where they feel unprepared to deal with the emotional task of relating to others well. There might also be a felt sense of immaturity when it comes to humor, point of view on issues, understanding world issues or events happening in the community, and ways of managing conflict. 

• Depression, anxiety, or other mental health concerns. These can happen after any trauma, but depression and anxiety are common after significant repression of needs.  When a congregant begins to feel anxious about messing up or disappointing the leadership, then the anxiety begins to swell and pour over into all areas of life. Similarly, depression can happen for any number of reasons in an oppressive environment and the depressed feelings only darken as the religious leaders tell the person they are “wrong”, “sick” or “influenced by Satan” when feeling sad, down, or depressed.

• Poor decision-making skills. When someone has learned to oppress their needs in order to meet the rigid criteria of a church or religious experience, this often leads to a lack of development in their own decision-making skills. It’s important to pay attention to the amount of fear that is communicated by leaders. When fear is used to oppress, contain, or manage the members of a group, there’s a lot of anxiety about making decisions that might differ from the ‘wisdom’ that the leadership touts. 

• Lack of self-confidence and self-esteem. These are usually the symptoms that are most identifiable for someone experiencing religious trauma. I have many patients that struggle to feel confident in themselves or their decisions because of the gaslighting or spiritual bypassing they have experienced in their religious experience. 

• Sense of isolation. When the religious teachings or teachers insist that outsiders, government, schools, teachers, or communities are all problematic because they don’t subscribe to the belief systems of that religion, it begins to isolate the congregation from the outside world.  This is deeply problematic because it lessens the likelihood of the members of the congregation having outside resources, support, or influence.  

• Pervasive feelings of guilt and shame. This is one of the most common outcomes of religious trauma: unending feelings of guilt and shame. It can become so pervasive that almost all of life’s experiences are accompanied by guilt over feeling joy, pleasure, connection, or wonderment. Teachings that espouse that followers are “bad” or “sinful” with no hope of betterment without the church, the churches’ leadership or spiritual text creates unnecessary shame. These messages also create dependence on the overpowering religious community to address these feelings of guilt and shame, which begins a toxic and abusive relationship.

• Difficulty forming healthy adult relationships. This is especially true for people that grew up in a religious abusive environment. Healthy attachment with appropriate boundaries, emotional exploration and relational safety can be hard to create when it has not been modeled in the religious community or environment. 

Religious Trauma Syndrome (RTS)

I’ll end by mentioning that there’s been some recognition of the term Religious Trauma Syndrome in recent years by the research and clinical community. This syndrome is not acknowledged in our official diagnostic manual in the clinical world, but the term is meant to describe a grouping of symptoms that have been consistent among groups of individuals that report significant religious trauma. These symptoms can range in severity, but describe the outcome of experiencing “authoritarian, dogmatic, and controlling religious groups and belief systems.” 

Final Thoughts

I have found that religious trauma can be one of the most triggering topics out there.  Acknowledging that your experience is unhealthy can be difficult for anyone but, for religious folks, it tends to feel like it threatens every aspect of their life: community, friendships, marriages, parenting, money, etc. If you are feeling triggered or overwhelmed, perhaps just start with the question: Do I feel like I would have anything if I left this religious community? If the answer is no, then there’s some work to do to create more significant support outside of the religious community. If that is not allowed or you’re told that’s a deeply shameful desire, then talking to a professional can help address some of these deeply internalized fears. 

Survivors: If you are reading through this list of symptoms and deeply identifying with each of them, we know the feeling. We have created a specialized education program for survivors like you, where we walk you through the nitty gritty parts of religious trauma and cult recovery. Join us for A Year of Non-Magical Thinking and we walk you through the ways religious trauma happens, what we need to do in the aftermath and how we can take control of our mental health again. Join us today!

Therapists: If you are treating folks that have come out of religiously traumatizing environments and you'd like more support in how to help them recover, we created an education and consultation membership just for you. Join us for A Year of Non-Magical Thinking for Therapists and learn how religious trauma happens, what you can do you help your clients recover and get some support with your cases through consultation.