Live 2-Part Virtual Training

Day 1: October 2, 2026 - 9am - 12:30pm PT | 11am-2:30pm CT | 12-3:30pm ET

Day 2: October 9, 2026 - 9am - 12:30pm PT | 11am-2:30pm CT | 12-3:30pm ET

Length: 7 hours total including breaks each day

Facilitator: Anna Clark Miller, LPC-S, LMHC-S

Intended Audience: Helping professionals including counselors, psychologists, social workers, and community leaders.

Description

This clinical training, split into two half-days, will provide mental health professionals with the practical skills and clinical approaches needed to competently work with survivors of religious trauma and spiritual abuse. We'll explore ways to assess the unique impacts of adverse religious/spiritual experiences, strategies for creating safety in the therapeutic relationship, and useful in-session tools with practical applications. The content will be organized in four sections including (1) Clinical Competencies, (2) Interviewing and Assessment, (3) Treatment Goals, and (4) Theories and Modalities. Facilitator, Anna Clark Miller, takes a religiously neutral approach that offers both clients and clinicians the freedom to seek healing on their own terms.

Learning Objectives

1. Participants will gain an understanding of the crucial clinical competencies and unique cultural considerations for treating religious and spiritual trauma.

2. Participants will be equipped with formal and informal assessment strategies to inform conceptualization and treatment planning for religious and spiritual trauma clients.

3. Participants will learn about evidence-based therapy modalities and a variety of practical therapeutic interventions for the treatment of religious and spiritual trauma.

Training Agenda

• Part 1: Clinical Competencies

  • Primary impacts of religious and spiritual trauma, tey terminology, prevalence and co-occurrence with other traumas, the clinical importance of addressing spirituality and religion in therapy, client safety considerations, transference and countertransference, clinician biases and self-disclosure.

• Part 2: Interviewing and Assessment

  • Formal and informal assessment tools, exploration of the significance of spirituality and religion to clients, common client symptoms including fear and spiritual hypervigilance, shame and disempowerment, rigid thinking, suppression, relationship dysfunction, grief and loss, and spiritual struggles.

• Part 3: Treatment Goals

  • General recovery goals for religious and spiritual trauma clients, strategies for adapting treatment to unique survivor experiences and marginalized populations including women and men in patriarchal groups, individuals born and raised in high-control groups, current/former leaders, BIPOC and LGBTQ+ clients, individuals with chronic illness or disabilities, and survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault.

• Part 4: Theories and Modalities

  • Evidence-based clinical approaches and modalities for religious and spiritual trauma and practical in-session tools and interventions that align with each theory.

Sources 

Research sources that inform this presentation can be found here: www.empathyparadigm.com/sources. Specific citations will be included in the slides.

Presenter Qualifications

Anna Clark Miller, LPC-S, LMHC-S, NCC, is a licensed counselor and clinical supervisor practicing in Texas, Washington, and Oregon. She has a masters degree in counseling psychology and has worked in the counseling field since 2015. As a counseling graduate student, she learned about religious trauma and its impacts on people from high-control religious communities, igniting her interest in this specialty. Today she specializes in treating survivors of religious and spiritual trauma and training the mental health professionals who work with them. She is the author of For God's Sake: Recovering From Religious Trauma, which offers a path to healing from high-control religious experiences. Through her company, Empathy Paradigm, Anna manages the Religious Trauma Therapist Directory and a library of other practical resources for religious trauma survivors and mental health professionals. Licensing: LPC Texas #75728, LPC Oregon #C8578, LMHC Washington #LH61328702, NCC #718936.

Continuing Education Credits

This program offers 6.5 continuing education hours for attendees who register with CEUs included.

Empathy Paradigm has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 7921. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. Empathy Paradigm is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.

Additional Information

Please send questions or accommodation requests to info@empathyparadigm.com.