Academic/
Blogs/Articles
The views reflected in these resources may not necessarily align with ours, and we acknowledge that there are many other perspectives out there. However, we want to share a variety of resources that are available to offer different viewpoints and options.
Jane Kennedy - Substack - ‘The Sentimental Non-Believer’
Jane, a therapist who grew up during the Pentecostal church boom of the 80s and 90s, now identifies as a Sentimental Non-Believer. Her writing delves into her journey through religious trauma and evolving faith. Jane seeks to connect with others facing similar experiences, offering understanding and healing.
Jaime Simpson - Substack
Jaime is a counsellor and academic in the Domestic Violence and Religious Trauma space and loves chatting about all things healing from living in a coercive controlling relationship or environment.
Cashwell, S. and Swindle, P. (2018). When religion hurts: Supervising cases of religious abuse.
"In this article, we define religious abuse, explore nuanced challenges of working with clients who present as survivors of religious abuse, and discuss ways in which supervisors, operating within a trauma-informed framework, can best support supervisee’s working with cases of religious abuse.”
"This article discusses the use and abuse of religious beliefs and their role in divide-and-conquer strategies. Divide-and-conquer strategies are engaged to disrupt potential coalitions between and among marginalised group members, specifically sexual minority groups and people of colour.”
"This paper explores their contribution to the particular harms of moral injury and religious trauma, drawing firstly on the foundational moral injury literature to offer a unique conceptual framework of spiritual harm and moral injury, and secondly on a rare qualitative 2016–2021 study of the spiritual harms reported in semi-structured interviews of 42 survivors of LGBTQA + change and suppression practices in Australia.”
"This monograph addresses various issues concerning mental illness in psychiatry: the relation of religious issues to mental health; the tension between a theoretical approach to problems and psychiatric approaches; the importance of addressing these varying approaches in patient care and how to do so; and differing ways to approach Christian, Muslim, and Buddhist patients.”
Clare Heath-McIvor - Substack ‘Exvangelical Explainers’
Clare writes on Dominionism, bad theology, church culture, culture wars, exvangelical life and forging a path out here in the real world with the "normals." You know, things that seem bonkers to people who weren't raised in church.
Downie, A. (2022). Christian Shame and Religious Trauma. Religions, 13(10), 925.
"The analysis of religious trauma is enriched by considering how it may be produced by formation in chronic shame. The testimony of those who have experienced religious trauma and severe religious shame is essential to interdisciplinary understanding of and response to this harm. The experiences of those harmed indicates that some traditional Christian doctrinal interpretations are shaming.”
"Christian communities teaching traditional theology and ethics, which treat diverse sexualities and gender expansive identities as sinful, can be places where faithful LGBTQIA + people are subject to spiritual abuse. This paper explores the complex dynamics and multilayered mechanisms of this abuse in Australian Evangelical Christianity.”
"Hermeneutic Phenomenological Study-- Exploring Meaning: Queer and Trans Experiences of Religious Trauma and Shame”
Arel, S. (2016). Affect Theory, Shame, and Christian Formation
"This addresses the eclipse of shame in Christian theology by showing how shame emerges in Christian texts and practice in ways that can be neither assimilated into a discourses of guilt nor dissociated from embodiment.”
"Religion and spirituality (R/S) play an important role in the lives of many. Although R/S can be a resource when coping with stress, it can also be a source of stress or trauma. We sought to review the extant empirical research on R/S abuse and trauma.”
"This is an interactive self-help workbook and psychological road map to enable survivors of coercive, cultic and spiritual abuse to find healing, recovery and growth.”
"This article explores the relationship between hermeneutical injustice in religious settings and religious trauma (RT) and spiritual violence (SV). In it I characterize a form of hermeneutical injustice (HI) that arises when experiences are obscured from collective understanding by normatively laden concepts, and I argue that this form of HI often plays a central role in cases of religious trauma and spiritual violence, even those involving children.’