This bundle of 13 worksheets provides a wide-ranging toolkit for religious trauma recovery, covering themes including trauma responses, high-control group dynamics, cycles of abuse, purity culture, and more. Each worksheet includes self-inventory checklists and reflection prompts designed to help survivors identify how adverse religious experiences have impacted them and how they can establish a sense of autonomy and self-compassion. These worksheets can be used as a supplement to therapy or as a self-led introduction to recovery.
Table of Contents
Religious Trauma Inventory
Maps out how experiences in high-control religious groups can undermine a person's fundamental sense of safety across five definitive real-world domains.
40-item checklist of mindsets evaluating: Fear & Anxiety (FA), Shame (SH), Rigid Thinking (RT), Self-Suppression (SS), and Social Dysfunction (SD).
Reflection prompts to explore the current day impacts of adverse religious experiences.
High Control Group Inventory
Provides an analytical framework to identify whether a current or former group relies on a culture of enforced conformity, submission, and absolute loyalty.
40-item checklist categorized by control dynamics: Coercion (CO), Denial of Autonomy (DA), Exploitation (EX), Intimidation (IA), Isolation (IS), Justification (JA), Shame (SH), Threats (TC), and Utopian Ideals (UI).
Reflections on personal experiences of control and recognizing red flags.
Childhood Religious Messages Inventory
Focuses on complex developmental religious trauma by unpacking harmful messages internalized during crucial developmental years.
40-item specialized index categorized into: shame-based submission, fear tactics, spiritual pressure, censorship, identity suppression, and systemic enmeshment.
Reflection prompts on how messaging may impact adult survivors.
Personal Values Inventory
A self-exploratory exercise to help individuals from high-control systems differentiate between authentic personal values and external values imposed by their group, family, or culture.
50+ value checkboxes scored as "Personal" vs. "Group" values.
Reflection prompts on taking ownership and setting personal goals.
Religious Patriarchy & Purity Culture Inventory
Evaluates the shame-inducing psychological and physical impacts of gender-based hierarchies, divinely sanctioned male authority, and rigid sexual purity frameworks.
22-item checklist identifying teaching of traditional family/gender hierarchies and sex-negative purity culture themes.
Reflection prompts to analyze sex-related anxiety and adherence to strict gender roles.
Cycle of Religious Abuse Worksheet
An adaptation of Lenore Walker's Cycle of Abuse model to explain predictable, repeating patterns of manipulation and control within high-control religious groups.
Step-by-step checklists for 4 phases: Tensions Building, Incident, Reconciliation, and Calm (Love Bombing).
Reflection prompts to address internalized shame and survival responses.
Group Power & Control Worksheet
An adaptation of the Domestic Abuse Intervention Project's Power & Control Wheel to map out how abusive religious systems wield systemic power over their members.
Examination of 8 distinct spokes: Coercion & Threats, Authority & Intimidation, Shame, Isolation & Insulation, Justification of Abuse, Loss of Autonomy, Sex & Gender Control, and Economic Control.
Reflection prompts for reflection on experiences in high-control groups
Threat Responses Worksheet
A somatic awareness tool that maps out how the nervous system automatically deploys survival strategies like fight, flight, freeze, or fawn when navigating physical or psychological dangers.
Comprehensive breakdown of symptoms across 4 primary instinctual domains: Fight (attack), Flight (flee), Freeze (paralyze), and Fawn (appease).
Reflection prompts to identify go-to threat responses and options for creating safety
Trauma Responses Worksheet
Provides clinical language and concepts to validate how an overwhelmed nervous system stays stuck in survival mode long after a spiritual threat has passed.
Symptom checklist indexing the prominent signs of post-traumatic stress including hypervigilance/anxiety, reliving/avoidance, disconnection/dissociation, and depression/isolation.
Reflection prompts to promote survivor awareness of trauma symptoms.
Therapeutic Deconstruction Worksheet
A curiosity-driven guide aimed at helping individuals safely unpack complex faith concepts to align their stated beliefs with their authentic selves. Reframes deconstruction as a therapeutic tool for curiosity and internal congruence rather than a binary rejection of faith.
An inventory of 28 common high-control doctrinal statements that trigger internal friction (incongruence).
Reflection prompts for identifying black-and-white thinking and prompting cognitive flexibility.
Learned Helplessness Inventory
An introduction to the psychological sense of powerlessness and loss of self-trust that emerges from long-term compliance in authoritarian or abusive structures. Raises awareness to new avenues of empowerment.
20-item checklist assessing motivation, boundary setting, self-sabotage, and stagnation.
Reflection prompts for reclaiming agency and safety.
Shame vs. Self-Compassion Worksheet
An exercise designed to help survivors counter internalized, shame-based self-talk with empowering, self-compassionate alternatives. Introduces self-compassion as the functional antidote to shame-based religious messaging that emphasizes inherent brokenness, sin, and total sacrifice.
Side-by-side comparative inventory charting 17 shame-based inner scripts directly against empowered, self-compassionate alternatives.
Reflection prompts on identifying shame and using realistic self-affirmations.
Freedom of Consent Inventory
A practical checklist that highlights consent as the language of personal autonomy that models healthy boundaries for self and others. Offer an alternative to environments where submission and mandatory service are expected without personal preference.
18-item checklist of practical examples of consent in verbal boundaries, physical touch, option-offering, and privacy configuration.
Reflection prompts on internal judgments about consent and autonomy.