Recovery from religious trauma

The Dallas Observer has an in-depth story about Kathryn Keller, a Metroplex counselor who specializes in recovery from religious trauma.

And, yes, it's real, and as the only one of my siblings to move beyond my fundamentalist Lutheran childhood, it's needed.

As with the sexual, emotional and physical abuse of childhood, I don't think I've totally recovered from this one, either.

Keller rightly notes that religious abuse, like other types, occurs on a continuum. And she's active with her church tradition herself, so she's not an atheist trying to tear down faith.

She says that it can, like other forms of abuse in childhood, if ongoing, cause not just PTSD but complex PTSD. Agreed.

And, if you have a parent who is a religious leader, even if the abusiveness isn't that bad, that increases the ongoing factor.

I rejected my childhood beliefs on both intellectual and emotional-psychological grounds. I probably would have done so anyway, even without seeing the hypocrisy firsthand. But, that did add to the issue.