Religious trauma results from harmful experiences within a religious community or conflicts with personal beliefs. This trauma can severely impact mental health, and recognizing the signs is crucial for healing.

To help clients identify religious trauma, I recommend starting with therapist education and support. Religious trauma has some similarities to other types of trauma, but it can also have some unique symptoms that are outcomes of extreme manipulation, coercion, and thought reform.

Here are some questions to consider asking yourself to assess better if religious trauma might be present in your clients:

• Have they experienced abusive behaviors within their religious community, including physical, emotional, sexual abuse, or manipulation?
• Do they feel conflicted between their personal beliefs and the teachings of their religion?
• Do they experience guilt or shame when not meeting religious expectations, leading to feelings of failure?
• Have they felt isolated or unsupported by their religious community for not fitting in or aligning with its expectations?
• Have they noticed changes in mental health, such as increased anxiety or decreased self-esteem, due to their religious involvement?
• Are there increasingly negative outcomes when they express doubt about the religious’s expressed beliefs?
• Have they had access to outside influences or has the group greatly diminished their access to media, art, education, etc?

If the answer is “yes” to any of these, it may signal religious trauma. This is an incredibly helpful place to start in your clinical work, as religious trauma is often isolating. It’s vital to prioritize and address religious trauma within therapy because it is way more common than we think. Recent research in the Socio-Historical Examination of Religion & Ministry found that 1 in 3 Americans experience some type of religious trauma. That is astounding and it means that many of the clients that are already seeking your services as a coach or a therapist have experienced religious trauma and they need your help (and you need specific training to help).

Our community specializes in helping individuals leave high-control religious groups and recover from trauma. We offer specialized training and continuing education courses to help therapists and coaches understand and address religious trauma with their clients. If you are working with religious trauma clients (hint: of course you are if the statistics are true!), we offer certification to become a Certified Religious Trauma Specialist in our program A Year of Non-Magical Thinking, led and taught by clinicians who focus on religious trauma and cult recovery.

By recognizing religious trauma and offering informed support, we can help clients reclaim their autonomy and mental health. Your clients deserve a space to reclaim their lives after religious trauma and we can help you support them.