Clients afraid they’re going to hell because they had sex with their boyfriends. Clients burdened by shame and disowned for exploring their sexual identities. Clients abused or shunned when they dared to question the rigid beliefs enforced by their church, family, or partners.

These aren’t the sensational stories of celebrities, cults and abuse garnering widespread focus in the media. These are regular people, lots of them, participating in mainstream religious communities, and carrying the weight of spiritual wounds that so often go unnoticed or unnamed.

Today these clients are recognizing their religious trauma. And more of them than ever before and looking for specialized treatment.

Now in this one-day training you can join religious trauma expert Anna Clark Miller LPC-S to get the knowledge, skills, and therapeutic approaches you need to confidently work with individuals who have endured religious trauma, spiritual abuse, and the effects of high-control environments.

In just one day, you’ll get what you need to:

• Assess for the presence and extent of spiritual abuse and religious trauma
• Understand underlying dynamics that keep clients stuck in oppressive religious environments
• Connect clients with sources of meaning-making and connection of their own choosing (whether religious or not)
• Tailor therapy to diverse identities including women, BIPOC, LGBTQ+ and more

And much more!

Don’t miss this chance to illuminate the path to recovery and transformation for this rapidly growing clinical population.

Register now!

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

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