Religious/Spiritual Therapy can be helpful for people who feel that their religious affiliation and/or spiritual experience is a very important aspect of their health and wellness. Therapy focuses on finding fulfillment, coping skills, and purpose in this aspect of a clients’ life, and works to improve the quality of a client’s relationship with their religion/spirituality. A belief in a higher power can be very helpful in contexts when someone feels as though they are not able to continue working with the difficult experiences that they have had/are having, so this can also be helpful in trauma recovery.
By contrast, some people struggle to reconcile their religion/spirituality with other aspects of their identity. Even for those who are not currently interested in religion/spirituality, the background can impact their present-day lives just like any other kind of childhood experience. Religious/Spiritual Therapy is therapy that acknowledges these aspects of a client’s background and present-day lives, that may impact their mental health and wellness directly and indirectly, positively and/or negatively. This can include explorations of religion/spirituality in the context of other concerns, processing trauma, coping skills, and exploring options for the future in a safe, unconditionally approving space. A client can choose, and then change their mind at any point, to learn a healthier way to exist and accept themselves either with or without their religion. These can both be healthy approaches to the future.
Kinds of Religious and/or Spiritual Abuse
Religious and/or Spiritual Abuse (RSA) is the specific area of abuse suffered by those of who do not just question, but act and/or exist in some way outside of the expectations and guidelines laid out within their religion. Reconciling this can become a public, painful, and abusive process regardless of whether someone moves forward into a future within or without their religion.
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Leadership Representing Deity/Ultimate Spiritual Authority
Religious leaders phrasing their messages so that it sounds like their higher power is speaking through them, making their words infallible and leaving no room for critical thinking or argument.
Spiritual Bullying
Overt and direct abuse to accomplish conformity to the norm.
Acceptance via Performance
Where you are only accepted if you do as you are told, and you will be punished if you do not.
Spiritual Neglect
Ignoring physical or mental health concerns of someone who does not fit within the prescriptive roles of their religious community because what they are going through is presumed to be a judgement on them from their higher power.
Expanding External/Internal Tension
The unbearable tension and cognitive dissonance experienced by someone who has compartmentalized themselves in order to avoid facing the conflict within them: they are who they are and are unable to change, but fully accepting who they are may mean that their higher power is either not real or an unloving entity. This tension is built and reinforced by conflicting messages within a person’s religion and religious community, and greatly impacts mental health.
Manifestation of Internal States
The unbearable tension on the inside, along with the suffering caused by experiencing other forms of RSA, manifests somehow on the outside, often in physical symptoms like gastrointestinal issues and headaches.