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.

In the second half of the module, participants will learn and practice three body-based interventions that support nervous system regulation and emotional integration of grief. These include Somatic Mapping of Religious Loss to help clients identify where grief lives in the body; Pendulation Between Loss- and Restoration-Oriented States to support titrated emotional processing; and Grief Integration Rituals to create space for symbolic and embodied mourning. These practices offer gentle, trauma-informed pathways to metabolize grief that bypass the limitations of purely verbal processing. By engaging the body, clinicians can help clients expand their emotional range, reduce somatic symptoms of unresolved grief, and create space for post-traumatic growth in the aftermath of religious trauma.

This course is approved by APA and NBCC for 1 Continuing Education Credits.