How One Heals Religious Trauma Through Relational Psychotherapy: Four Essential Therapy Tools
As a therapist who works with religious trauma, I find that folks seek me out as a person and a professional, both. What I find is that having a professional that can provide some relational and personal approaches to this work is often essential. Mainly because religious trauma can significantly impact someone’s sense of self, relationships, and worldview. For those who have experienced spiritual abuse, oppressive beliefs, or unhealthy religious environments, the wounds can run deep.
With an approach like relational psychotherapy, this can offer a compassionate and human-centered approach to healing these wounds, emphasizing the power of relationships—both with others and within yourself. In today’s blog, I want to share four key therapy tools used in relational psychotherapy to address religious trauma so you can know what to expect as you embark on this brave journey.
1. Creating a Safe Relational Space
One of the cornerstones of relational psychotherapy is the creation of a therapeutic environment that feels safe, non-judgmental, and nurturing. Many who have experienced religious trauma carry deep fears of being judged or shamed, often stemming from rigid belief systems or authoritarian religious leaders.
In therapy, this safe relational space allows you to:
Explore their experiences without fear of rejection or judgment from your therapist.
Reclaim their voice, especially if you’ve ever felt like you couldn’t have a voice based on your experiences.
Build trust in relationships again, learning that relationships can be supportive, empathetic, and validating when you know how to set boundaries healthily.
By creating this safety, a therapist can help you, as a client, begin to rebuild your sense of connection with others in a healthier and more fulfilling way.
2. Exploring Internalized Beliefs and Values
Religious trauma often leaves individuals struggling to reckon with internalized beliefs that can be harmful or conflicting. These might include feelings of unworthiness, fear of punishment, or black-and-white thinking about morality. What is beneficial about relational psychotherapy is that it encourages clients to examine these internalized beliefs in a gentle, collaborative, and supportive way.
Some techniques your therapist may use include:
Reflective dialogue to unpack how religious teachings and beliefs have shaped your inner narrative.
Identifying harmful thought patterns rooted in religious indoctrination (think “brainwashing” or thought reform).
Exploring new belief systems that align more with their personal values, rather than dogma/beliefs imposed by external organizations.
This exploration can help you develop a more authentic relationship with yourself, one not bound by guilt or fear, but by personal integrity and choice (which is SO key in this work!)
3. Restoring a Sense of Agency
Religious trauma has the ability to strip someone’s sense of autonomy and agency, as they often feel controlled by religious authority figures or rigid systems of belief. One thing to note is that a key goal in relational psychotherapy is to help you reclaim your power and make autonomous decisions about your beliefs and values as an individual.
Through restoring a sense of agency, your therapist will work to:
Empower you to set boundaries, both emotionally and spiritually, especially with former religious communities or influences.
Encourage decision-making that reflects your own desires and needs, rather than the expectations of a religious group.
Foster self-compassion, allowing you to recognize that you are worthy of love and belonging, regardless of whether you meet those religious standards or not.
As you begin to trust yourself again, you can rebuild a sense of agency and choice, which is So important for your long-term healing and self care.
4. Addressing Interpersonal Relationships Affected by Religious Trauma
Understandably, religious trauma often has a ripple effect on one’s personal relationships, especially when family or community members still follow the beliefs that have caused the trauma. Relational psychotherapy places great importance on examining these interpersonal dynamics and helping you navigate them.
Some tools that your therapist can use to address these relational issues include:
Role-playing scenarios where you get to practice how to use assertive communication with family members, religious figures and former community members.
Boundary-setting exercises to help protect the your emotional well-being while managing complex relationships.
Support in building new, healthier relationships, where you get to feel valued for who you are, rather than who you are expected to be within a religious context.
Your religious trauma therapist can help guide you as you work to build a supportive social network that reflects your evolving identity and needs.
My hope for you is that you can use this blog as a way to help you know what to expect (as therapy is already nerve-wracking in and of itself, much less religious trauma therapy!). When we can find a therapist who is on your side and able to do the work to support you through the entanglement of your experiences while also holding space for the questions and struggles you are navigating from the past, it creates such a powerful trajectory of growth that builds that sense of self in healthy and autonomous ways.
If you, or someone you know, is seeking the type of therapeutic approach mentioned above, I would love to connect with you! I am taking new clients throughout North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida via telehealth and I offer a free fifteen minute consultation to see if we’d be a great fit. Schedule a free call today at the link here and you can be well on your way towards the growth and healing you’re seeking :)
Mindfully,
Sam Speed
