Religious Trauma & Cult Recovery Blog

Let’s break down all of the religious trauma themes that we see in the film Women Taking. Trigger warning: sexual assault

I’m Dr. Quincee Gideon and I’m a clinical psychologist and educator specializing in religious trauma and cult abuse recovery. I want to point...

At first, connecting religious trauma and perfectionism might feel like a bit of a mental reach. But most of the high-control groups that religious trauma survivors endured were overrun with high demands for perfectionistic behavior and that tends to have a really negative impacts on ones mental...

Perfectionism is a powerful anxious response that so many of us walk around with in our everyday life. We don't always fully understand why we can be so mean and demanding of ourselves and it can be helpful to understand perfectionism from a trauma-informed lens.

Gaining Control

Perfectionism can...

Deconstruction from religion is a process that many people go through when they begin to question their belief system. The stages of deconstruction can vary from person to person, but some common stages include:

1. Doubt

This stage begins with questioning certain aspects of one's religion or...

Trauma-informed coaching is a specific approach to coaching that takes into account the impact of trauma on your life and well-being. It involves understanding the ways in which trauma can affect your thoughts, behaviors, and emotions, and adapting coaching strategies and techniques accordingly.

We want religious organizations and communities to be safe, but when they are riddled with toxic emotional dynamics, those spaces become unsafe. One of the common unhealthy manipulation tactics that can be used in rigid and traumatizing religious communities is gaslighting.  

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