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Full Description
Provides a clinically grounded, compassionate framework for understanding and healing religious and spiritual trauma. Written by an experienced therapist and trauma specialist, it offers readers practical tools to name their wounds, reclaim agency, and move toward wholeness—whether or not they choose to remain within a religious tradition.
Drawing on empirical research, therapeutic practice, and the author's own lived experience, SC Nealy explains how harmful religious environments can produce trauma symptoms comparable to those associated with abuse, coercion, and complex PTSD. It clarifies what religious trauma is, how it manifests emotionally and physically, and why it has remained underrecognized despite its widespread impact. Particular attention is given to the experiences of LGBTQ+ individuals, for whom religious harm is often compounded by rejection, shame, and identity-based violence.
Each chapter combines psychoeducation with guided reflection and self-directed exercises designed to support healing. Readers are invited to identify and validate traumatic experiences, challenge internalized blame and shame, establish healthy boundaries, and cultivate self-compassion. Nealy also addresses the complexities of witnessing or participating in harm, offering pathways for accountability, repair, and forgiveness without minimizing injury.
Rather than prescribing a single outcome, the book honors multiple paths forward. Some readers may choose to rebuild a faith identity on their own terms; others may step away from religion entirely. Both choices are treated as valid expressions of healing. Discussion questions support use by clinicians, support groups, and educational settings, while an accompanying online Toolbox for Survivors provides worksheets and additional resources.
Accessible, affirming, and grounded in years of clinical expertise, this guide offers a hopeful path for survivors and helps them move toward long-term psychological well-being.
Contents
List of Figures
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part 1: Identifying Religious or Spiritual Trauma
1. What is Religious and Spiritual Trauma?
2. Types of Religious and Spiritual Trauma
3. Self-Advocating for Your Religious and Spiritual Trauma
Part 2: Experiencing and Understanding Religious or Spiritual Trauma
4. Blaming and Shaming as a Tool of Religious Trauma
5. The Impact of Secondary Trauma in Religious Backgrounds
6. The Impact on Attachment Style: God as Our Primary Caregiver
7. Your Body is Sinful: Unpacking Purity Culture and Modesty Morality
8. When You're to Blame: Complicit Causation and Coercion
Part 3: Moving Forward After Trauma
9. Doing Your Own Personal Trauma Work
10. Reclaiming Faith and Spirituality After Trauma or Choosing to Leave Religion and Faith Behind Entirely
Conclusion
Further Resources
About the Author
About the Practice
