Spiritual abuse can cause lasting psychological harm, including complex PTSD, a fragmented sense of self, and deep shame. This article explores the trauma symptoms associated with spiritual abuse — including emotional dysregulation, disturbed relationships, and a negative self-concept — and what recovery can look like. Psychologist Kylie Walls explains the symptoms of complex PTSD and how they present in the context of spiritual abuse and religious trauma.

This article by psychologist Kylie Walls explores the psychological effects of adult sexual grooming and exploitation in religious and spiritual settings, including clergy sexual abuse, spiritual abuse, and clergy sexual misconduct. Written by a psychologist with an area of focus in religious trauma, it examines how grooming works in faith communities, why survivors often do not recognise it as abuse, and what the aftermath looks like, including PTSD, complex trauma, shame, loss of faith, and disrupted sense of self.

Why do survivors of spiritual abuse so often return to the person who harmed them — and grieve them even after leaving? Psychologist Kylie Walls explains trauma bonding: the powerful attachment that forms through power imbalance and intermittent warmth, and why churches, ministries and religious communities are particularly fertile ground for it. Drawing on the work of Dutton and Painter, Patrick Carnes, and recent Cambridge research, this article explores how the bond is actively built through grooming and sacred authority, why doubt about a leader can feel like doubt about God, and what recovery involves. Written for survivors and those who support them, it makes clear that the pull back is a conditioned response, not a personal failing.

Do you find yourself cancelling plans for family, editing what you say around your parents, or feeling simultaneously guilty for staying and guilty for pulling away? This article explores the psychology of enmeshment, the two competing parts of self it produces, and what healing can look like.

Understanding adult clergy sexual exploitation requires insight into spiritual abuse and the psychological dynamics that make victims more vulnerable. This article explores how cognitive dissonance, schema chemistry, and reverence for spiritual leaders can cloud victims' perceptions, making abuse harder to recognize. Highlighting the importance of appropriate vulnerability in relationships and the misuse of pastoral authority, it addresses the spiritual harm victims experience.

Do you struggle to know what you want, or feel your sense of self gets lost in your closest relationships? The Enmeshment schema may explain why — discover where it comes from and how schema therapy can help.

Do you struggle with anxious attachment or live with a constant fear that people will leave? The Abandonment/Instability schema shapes some of our most painful relationship patterns. Discover where this schema comes from, how it shows up in daily life, and how schema therapy can help.

What sustains harm in spiritually abusive churches isn't the perpetrator alone — it's the quiet, semi-conscious compliance of those around them. A psychologist’s analysis of Václav Havel's The Power of the Powerless and his greengrocer as a lens for religious trauma, bystander complicity, and the slow work of repair.