Exploring Spiritual Trauma
Many of my Chicago therapy clients are curious about psychology and spirituality, with special focus on the psychological impacts of trauma (aka: spiritual trauma). This connection is most poignant, perhaps, in terms of the ways that trauma sufferers often “turn within” to find philosophical or spiritual explanations for the difficult things that happen to them.
Simply put, trauma occurs when an event you experience shatters your world and reduces your ability to think of the world as a place of refuge. When soldiers witness the death of a comrade, or parents lose a young child, their emotional responses are typically raw and primal. These traumas violate our childlike view that life should be mostly good, and that harm will typically not come our way. Hence, trauma victims experience an injury to the spirit, one in which psychological harm endures long after the triggering event is over.
Sometimes, trauma comes with a silver lining. The psychologist William James noted that during times of trauma, people can sometimes “break open” into other dimensions of consciousness and transcend their painful circumstances. Here, we think of a person whose near-death experience “woke them up” and helped them to quit a horrible job to pursue the career of their dreams. Traumatic events can also take a person into deep existential waters where they can contemplate the true purpose of their life, or ponder the best ways to live well today, knowing that, like all of us, they will not live forever.
These questions suggest that human beings, consciously or not, strive for a sense of belonging with each other and for a deep and meaningful connection to larger world in which we live.
While traumatic experiences can be cathartic, I’d like to consider the impact of traumas that come from other, darker sources – such as sexual abuse by religious clergy or, more commonly, the abusive comments that religious adherents sometimes direct at people who differ from them in terms of sexual orientation or preference.
Related: Religious trauma therapy in Chicago
Traumatic experiences in in these tender areas can penetrate a person right down to the soul. When youngsters are introduced to religious beliefs in their families of origin, they often take comfort in religious rituals and authority figures as primary sources of meaning in life. So when a young person is sexually or emotionally abused by a religious figure, or when this sort of figure criticizes that person based on sexual preference or orientation, the results can be profoundly disorienting – as the victim’s traditional source of security has now become the source of their pain. When a person is abused or criticized to the core by a religious or spiritual figure they’ve trusted, that person may lose faith that life is a safe, orderly and continuous experience.
The broader world in which the victim lives ceases to feel like a safe haven, for the spiritual system that once gave comfort ends up being untrustworthy. Victims of religious or spiritual trauma may thus feel a profound sense of helplessness; a sense that they no longer have control over their lives.
What are the telltale indicators that a person has experienced spiritual trauma? Here are five common signs:
- a deepening experience of depression, anxiety or hypervigilance
- a sense of isolation or numbness
- deep and lasting feelings of guilt, shame or self-blame
- a lack of self-esteem or self-confidence
- difficulty forming or maintaining healthy relationships
People who’ve suffered religious trauma may become triggered by spiritual or religious themes in the here and now – and they may come to reject religion or spirituality altogether. Some trauma specialists believe these symptoms occur when a person’s natural response to stress – the “fight or flight” response – is stifled. This can happen when a young person feels helpless in the face of sexual abuse by religious clergy.
Here, powerful forces within the broader church often stifle the victim’s claims of wrongdoing. If church figures continually cast doubt on a victim’s claims of abuse, it stands to reason that the victim will feel deeply helpless. Or when a young person comes out as a member of the LGBTQ+ communities, but is continually told that this is spiritually wrong, the victim may struggle to know that they’re fine the way they are – amidst a steady stream of criticism from others who claim, on religious grounds, to know otherwise.
How can a person begin to heal from spiritual trauma? The first task is to find a compassionate and well-trained psychotherapist who can help to calm your anxious symptoms over the short term, and then explore the origins of the trauma for the purpose of facing it and disarming it. Therapists in our practice can provide short-term relief through cognitive behavioral therapy techniques that pinpoint difficult thoughts (e.g., “I am useless and unlovable”) and replace them with more productive thoughts (e.g., “Though I was once victimized, I deserve a healthy and happy life!”). In some cases, a skilled therapist can also work with a trauma victim to gently recreate some of the traumatizing circumstances for the purpose of “desensitization” – of helping the client understand that negative events from the past are not powerful enough to derail one’s life forever.
Related: Cognitive behavior therapy explored
Our therapists may also use psychodynamic techniques to help trauma victims. Here, the therapist takes a careful history of the client’s family, social and emotional life – listening very carefully for telltale signs that present-day symptoms are triggered at some deeper level by events that happened long ago. By listening carefully, and following the client’s lead, a skilled psychodynamic therapist can locate the places where a client’s emotions have become stuck. Once these “stuck points” are found, the therapist can help the client to better integrate these old experiences so they’re no longer troubling in a manner that prevents forward progress in life.
If you’ve suffered from spiritual or religious trauma, and would like to begin the journey toward healing – toward becoming more hopeful and resilient in the face of life’s many slings and arrows – please contact our practice to connect with a skilled therapist who can provide short-term relief, along with deeper therapeutic experiences that can bring lasting change.
