Module 1: Religious Trauma 101: Understanding and Healing Through the Body

INSTRUCTOR: Dr. Laura Anderson, PhD, LMFT

APA CE Credits: 1.75

This program is co-sponsored with Traumastry. Traumastry is approved by the American Psychological Association and NBCC to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Traumastry maintains responsibility for this program and its content.

Learning Objectives: 

• Participants will be able to identify and describe three somatic presentations of religious trauma and explain how they align with CPTSD symptom clusters in clinical assessment and treatment planning.
• Participants will demonstrate effective use of three somatic techniques within trauma-informed psychological treatment of clients recovering from religious trauma

Program Justification and Summary

This program offers licensed mental health professionals a clinically grounded, trauma-informed exploration of religious trauma that builds upon doctoral-level training in psychology by integrating somatic psychology, interpersonal neurobiology, and complex PTSD (CPTSD) into advanced clinical assessment and intervention. Designed to extend postdoctoral-level knowledge in assessment and intervention, the course focuses on the ways in which religious trauma—particularly from high-control religious environments—manifests in the body, and how these somatic imprints parallel the symptomology of CPTSD.

Participants will first analyze the embodied presentations of religious trauma, including chronic sympathetic activation, prolonged freeze/fawn responses, and fragmented body awareness. Drawing on research from trauma studies and the ICD-11 diagnostic framework, the program will explore how coercive religious systems can result in persistent disruptions to emotion regulation, self-concept, and relational functioning. Participants will use clinical case examples and interventions to better assess the physiological effects of religious trauma, including somatic dissociation, affect dysregulation, and internalized spiritual shame (Frewen et al., 2022; Cloitre et al., 2021; Karatzias et al., 2019; Helsel, 2015).

Building on this foundation, the second portion of the program explains three trauma-informed, body-based techniques that create nervous system regulation and boundary development during religious trauma recovery. These interventions are applied from Somatic Experiencing®, attachment theory and trauma-informed mindfulness practices. Participants will be able to apply these interventions clinically, with an emphasis on titration, pacing, and adaptability for clients whose trauma stems from spiritual abuse, authoritarian doctrine, or disembodied theology (Menakem, 2017; Payne et al., 2015; Grabbe & Miller-Karas, 2019).

Throughout the program, emphasis is placed on preparing clinicians to integrate somatic and cognitive approaches in the treatment of religious trauma while maintaining cultural humility, ethical care, and clinical rigor. This program fulfills the goals of continuing education by advancing participant competency in trauma theory, evidence-based intervention, and inclusive psychological practice. In doing so, this course equips psychologists to better serve individuals impacted by coercive religious systems, an often-overlooked population in trauma care, thereby enhancing public access to ethical and effective psychological treatment.