Module 7: Religious Trauma and Grief

This module reframes grief in the context of religious trauma, challenging the limitations of traditional grief models that often fail to address non-death losses, identity disruption, and the ongoing grief of surviving harmful systems. Clinicians will examine six core limitations of conventional grief frameworks, such as their emphasis on closure, pathologizing of prolonged emotional responses, and neglect of somatic and cultural dimensions of loss. These models often exclude the kinds of grief experienced by survivors of high-control religion, including ambiguous loss, disenfranchised grief, and identity grief—forms of loss that are socially unrecognized yet deeply felt. By expanding the clinical lens to include these grief experiences, clinicians can more effectively validate and support clients navigating complex spiritual, relational, and existential loss.