Religious/Spiritual Trauma: A Comprehensive Treatment Guide (December 2026)

Thursday, Dec 10, 2026 - 8:00am - 3:00pm PT | 10:00am - 5:00pm CT | 11:00am - 6:00pm ET

Length: 7 hours total including a lunch break

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

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

DESCRIPTION

Religious and spiritual trauma undermine a survivor's sense of self, autonomy, and connectedness in community, leaving lasting impacts on their psychological, physical, and social wellbeing. Despite recent research suggesting that a third of U.S. adults have had traumatic religious/spiritual experiences, many professionals feel ill-equipped to address these pervasive issues. Without adequate training, clinicians run the risk of inadvertently minimizing these experiences, imposing their biases onto clients, or recreating harmful dynamics in the therapeutic relationship. 

This full-day comprehensive training will equip mental health clinicians with the specialized knowledge and clinical competencies necessary to effectively assess and treat the complex trauma that can occur in spiritual communities—from cults to mainstream groups. 

Participants will explore core concepts—such as spiritual abuse, shame, high-control group dynamics, purity culture, and spiritual bypassing—while learning to recognize the multifaceted cognitive, emotional, relational, and somatic symptoms that clients experience. Across six detailed modules, this training addresses the therapeutic relationship, clinician biases, safety risks, and intersecting identities, alongside targeted assessment tools, psychoeducational strategies, and practical in-session interventions. Ultimately, the evidence-based treatment approaches covered in this training will provide clinicians with a roadmap to offer culturally competent care that promotes healing and autonomy for survivors of religious and spiritual trauma.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

1. Conceptualization: Participants will identify the core concepts and multifaceted impacts of religious and spiritual trauma—including considerations for vulnerable populations and intersecting traumas.

2. Clinical Ethics: Participants will be equipped with an ethical framework for navigating the therapeutic relationship, power dynamics, and clinician biases while addressing sensitive spiritual topics.

3. Assessment & Treatment Planning: Participants will utilize tools to assess client experiences and construct culturally competent treatment plans that address complex religious and spiritual trauma.

4. Evidence-Based Interventions: Participants will acquire practical, evidence-based tools, exercises, and interventions to help clients process shame, rebuild autonomy, and heal holistically.

TRAINING AGENDA

• Part 1: Core Concepts of Religious and Spiritual Trauma

• Part 2: Clinical Competencies

• Part 3: Spiritual Abuse and Dysfunctional Group Dynamics

• Lunch Break

• Part 4: Unique Populations and Intersecting Traumas

• Part 5: Assessment and Treatment Planning

• Part 6: Practical Therapeutic Interventions

  
  

SOURCES

Research sources that inform this presentation are cited here: www.empathyparadigm.com/sources.

PRESENTER QUALIFICATIONS

Anna Clark Miller, LPC-S, LMHC-S, NCC, is a licensed counselor, supervisor, author, and clinical trainer living in Washington State. After earning a master's degree in counseling psychology in 2015, she gained clinical experience through private practice, crisis intervention, and community mental health. Her focus on religious and spiritual trauma is rooted in her own lived experience as a survivor who struggled to find culturally competent care. In addition to her direct work with clients, Anna's passion is equipping mental health professionals with the ethical framework needed to promote autonomy and healing for survivors of religious and spiritual harm. She is the author of For God's Sake: Recovering from Religious Trauma, a practical guide for healing from high-control religious experiences. Through her company, Empathy Paradigm, she manages a Religious Trauma Therapist Directory and a library of resources for survivors and mental health professionals. 

(Licensing: TX LPC #75728, OR LPC #C8578, WA LMHC #LH61328702, NCC #718936.)

CONTINUING EDUCATION CREDITS

This program offers 6.0 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.

QUESTIONS

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