Religious Trauma & Cult Recovery Blog

Let’s break down all of the religious trauma themes that we see in the film Women Taking. Trigger warning: sexual assault

I’m Dr. Quincee Gideon and I’m a clinical psychologist and educator specializing in religious trauma and cult abuse recovery. I want to point...

What is deconstruction?

Deconstructing after religious trauma refers to the process of examining and reevaluating one's beliefs and experiences after experiencing trauma within a religious context. This process may involve questioning previously held beliefs, revisiting past experiences, and...

Leaving a religious community or cult is very difficult work. You are leaving your community of people, your belief system, and much of what you know. This process is destabilizing, as you uproot and change your life. After leaving your group, you probably have complicated feelings about your...

Religious trauma is more common than you might think. When trauma happens within religious environments, unique symptoms can arise. Oftentimes, there’s a mix of upsetting trauma symptoms and the mental health outcomes of living in repressive and controlling environments.  

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Let’s first start off with defining trauma. Trauma is anything that happens “too much, too fast” or "too often". This overwhelms our nervous systems and we are made to feel temporarily overwhelmed, which initiates our survival mechanisms of fight, flight, freeze, or fawn.

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We talk a lot about religious trauma and cult recovery here at Traumastery, and we believe that knowledge is power, so let’s take a moment to learn about the cult: Two by Twos. Scroll down to the bottom of this post to watch Dr. Quincee break down the features of the Two by Twos.

The Two by...