In this thought-provoking podcast episode, join us as we dive deep into the fascinating world of intersecting conservative religious upbringings and sexuality. Our special guest, Natasha Helfer, an AASECT Certified Sex Therapist/Supervisor and Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, shares her wealth of knowledge and nearly 30 years of experience in this dynamic field of healing from religious trauma.
Natasha’s expertise lies in deconstructing internalized sexual shame, offering invaluable insights into how individuals can overcome societal and religious pressures to embrace their authentic sexual selves. Through her group practice, she has helped countless people heal from religious trauma, navigate mixed-faith relationships, and embark on empowering journeys of self-discovery.
In this candid conversation, we explore the challenges faced by individuals who have grown up in conservative religious environments and the impact it has on their sexuality and relationships. Natasha provides practical advice and strategies for therapists and viewers alike, shedding light on the delicate balance between faith, personal growth, and sexual liberation.
Furthermore, Natasha opens up about her own personal journey, sharing how her advocacy for sexual health led to her excommunication from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon church) in 2021. Her firsthand experiences infuse the discussion with raw authenticity, inspiring listeners to challenge societal norms and foster greater understanding and acceptance.
Whether you’re a fellow therapist seeking professional insights or an individual looking to embrace your true sexual self while honoring your religious background, this episode is a must-listen. Join us as we break down barriers, challenge outdated beliefs, and embark on a journey towards sexual liberation.
*Some of the links found here are affiliate links: As an Associate I earn from qualifying purchases by way of commission at no additional cost to you. See full disclaimer here:
Table of Contents
BIO: Natasha Helfer, AASECT
Natasha Helfer is an AASECT Certified Sex Therapist/Supervisor and a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with almost 30 years of experience.
Her expertise lies in the intersection of conservative religious upbringings and sexuality, specifically in the area of deconstructing internalized sexual shame.
She runs a group practice where services focus on helping people with religious trauma, reclaiming sexual desire, mixed-faith relationships, coming out journeys, healing sexual shame or trauma, and exploring sexual authenticity.
Natasha was excommunicated from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon church) in 2021, for her advocacy in regards to sexual health.
natashahelfer.com
Learn More About With Natasha Helfer, AASECT, LMFT, and Healing From Religious Trauma
CONTACT AND SOCIALS:
- Bio: https://symmetrypath.com/natasha-helfer
- Website: https://symmetrypath.com/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SymmetrySolution
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/symmetrysolutions
Watch The Interview
If you liked this episode, be sure to check out my full playlist of interviews here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnPL9gahfhWatKmy2YSyU0jt20h_jrj3H
Listen To The Interview
*Some of the links are affiliate links: As an Associate I earn from qualifying purchases by way of commission at no additional cost to you.
Transcript:
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All right, welcome everyone to the Mental Health Toolbox podcast.
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Joining us today is Natasha Helfer.
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And if you’re a therapist, chances are that you have worked with clients who have
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sexual trauma, religious trauma, and maybe we’re not sure what the exact interventions are most efficacious in working with this population.
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So this is why I’m excited to have Natasha on today.
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She is a certified sex therapist and expert in religious trauma, and she’s here to help us with that intersection and dealing with clients who may be going through a transition in their faith
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or trying to deal with negotiating some of the sexual shame or religious issues with containment or internal conflict and all the stuff that comes in working with these populations.
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So very happy to have you on.
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Thank you so much, Natasha.
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Do you want to share with us a little bit about your background and what we can learn about this fascinating topic?
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Yeah.
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Hi.
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So glad to be here.
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Thanks for having me.
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I’m clinically, I’m a marriage and family therapist.
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I’m also certified as a sex therapist through ASEG.
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So it’s kind of a bit of my professional background.
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Personally, I come from a background in Mormonism myself.
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I was raised in the Mormon faith, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
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And I also have quite a bit of experience working with evangelical folks, Bible Belt folks.
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I lived quite a bit of my adult life in Wichita, Kansas, and I’m also Latina.
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So I speak Spanish fluently.
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So I’ve worked with a lot of Hispanic Catholics.
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So I’ve had a lot of religious folks come through my practice throughout my career.
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And this topic has come up more and more.
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We are seeing
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more people leave religious organizations than ever before.
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That’s kind of across the board.
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And so that does relate to people’s identity work, mental health work, community issues, all kinds of things.
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So it is a topic that’s dear to my heart for sure.
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all right i had a little bit of an echo there streaming to instagram for the first time so bear with me uh natasha there we go we’re all better now okay thank you so much so thank you so much for having uh making time today i just had to mute the browser on instagram you learn as you go folks you learn as you go
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So as I’d mentioned before we jumped on in the chat, anyone who’s joining from Instagram, please be aware.
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I am trying to monitor the comments over there.
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Appreciate you being here.
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StreamYard has not yet integrated comments with Instagram.
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So if you want to join the conversation in the chat, highlight your questions for Natasha.
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Please do make sure you jump on the YouTube channel or via Facebook.
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Just get Facebook permission to show your chat and we’ll be all good.
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Natasha, do you prefer saving the questions for the end or do you just want to play as we go if we have any questions along the way?
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I’m open to your flow, whatever you’d like, whatever is more comfortable for you.
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Excellent.
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Super.
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Wonderful.
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Well, again, thank you so much for being on.
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Again, my apologies for the echo on my end.
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Did you hear an echo on your end?
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I did not hear an echo.
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Good.
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Just me.
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Okay.
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I know that matters sometimes.
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Very good.
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All right.
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So as we get rolling here, do you want to share a little bit about your work in this field as a sex therapist, also in the religious trauma background and how you got into this specific work?
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Because that is quite the intersection.
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Yeah, it is.
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I mean, I think I got into the work kind of naturally, you know, having been part of a religious community myself, as it is with a lot of counselors.
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People will come to you because you’re part of their religious community.
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Right.
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And we know through the research that people from religious backgrounds tend to.
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favor therapists who also come from their religious backgrounds.
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Now there’s pros and cons to that for a lot of different reasons.
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So that was definitely my experience.
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And as people came and were starting to work with me, there were just so many issues along the way.
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I mean, I’ve been in this field for almost 30 years now.
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So I started kind of before the internet was a big deal, before there was a lot of internet pornography, for example.
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So that was kind of like the first flow of things that would start coming in with a lot of
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issues and concerns and ideas about whether or not there was such a thing as sex addiction, which now we know that there are much better ways of formatting sexual healthness outside of an addictions model.
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But those were things I did not know at the time and I was trying to find information about.
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And then you had kind of a flow of mixed faith marriages, right?
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Because if one person leaves a religion, that doesn’t necessarily mean their spouse leaves the religion.
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So
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that can cause a lot of distress and conversations and worry and anxiety.
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And then we also have had a huge shift in our nation as far as LGBTQ rights over the last 30 years.
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And so lots of people who are going through a coming out process also come from religious backgrounds themselves.
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And they’re trying to figure out, what does that mean for my spirituality?
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What does that mean for my religious community and my participation?
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Am I not accepted or loved?
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by God or by my people?
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Am I going to be ostracized?
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Because if I come out as gay or trans, I’m going to be seen as a sinner or something along those lines.
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So that was a huge influx of people.
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And then as I’ve worked with people who have left their religious homes and doing, in particular, sexual identity work, boy, there’s so much.
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So many of these people were raised in environments where
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Even the act of touching yourself, masturbation, any type of self-exploration or self-fantasy in your mind would be considered a sinful behavior.
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So when you’ve been raised in that kind of restrictive space, it’s very hard to know, where do I go from here?
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What do I believe now?
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What are my morals?
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What are my ethics?
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What’s my sexual intelligence going to look like moving forward?
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I imagine to us because so much of our identity is embedded in our faith, right?
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A lot of the times it’s almost indistinguishable, right?
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Yeah, for sure.
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I mean, it’s true of all aspects of culture and religion is one aspect of culture where you’re going to be raised in a system, whether it’s race or religion or ethnicity, and you’re going to absorb all of that meaning of life that that community has to offer you.
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And in a religious framework, that’s usually like,
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Answering questions like, why am I here on earth?
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What’s life about?
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Why do people suffer?
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What happens after we die?
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How am I supposed to live?
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What does God want for me in my life?
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So that’s pretty much all encompassing when it comes to somebody’s identity.
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And that affects, of course, your mental health, your social health, your sexual health, your spiritual health.
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And for some that bodes really well.
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I mean, we have a lot of research showing that folks from different religious communities do well in all of those areas.
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And then for others, not so much.
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And then not all religion is the same, right?
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So you have very fundamental religions, you have strict and conservative religions, you might have more progressive and liberal religions.
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For example, there’s quite a few congregations that are very LGBTQ affirming.
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but there’s many religions that are not.
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So religion in of itself is a large word that you have to- Well, even denominations within a religion, right?
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Right, exactly.
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Even the Christian faith, you can have very orthodox beliefs and doctrine, and you can have like the more, like you said, accepting sects of Christianity.
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Is it the same with other religions?
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I know you’re very familiar with Latter-day Saints.
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Mormonism, the Mormon Church.
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I know some other faiths as well, such as Jehovah’s Witness have very strict beliefs.
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What do you find that each religion has its some leniency or are some very, very just rigid across the board?
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Yeah, I think that’s a great question.
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We have obviously religions kind of as
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you know, a monolith, which they’re not.
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But, you know, they have their kind of general beliefs.
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And you have some religions that do have different sects, you know, like you have Orthodox Judaism, you have New Age Judaism, right?
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And so even though
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It’s all Judaism.
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It’s very different as far as maybe what would be some of the standards or expectations that a person should live by.
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In Christianity, you know, we’ve got like Unitarianism.
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We’ve got even within the Baptist Church, you know, you might have congregations that are more strict than others.
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Same with the Lutherans and Methodists.
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In the Latter-day Saint tradition, you know, we have, as far as the mainstream church, it’s considered a strict religion, but there are offshoots from the mainstream church, like the fundamental Mormons and Catholics.
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an even more lenient community of Christ that would be more affirming.
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But then you have fundamental Mormonism that’s even probably more strict than the mainstream church.
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So yes, this is, I think, one of the important things even for therapists to consider is that when somebody comes in and tells you, well, I’m Catholic, right, or I’m some day Adventist, you may have your own perceptions of what that means.
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But within the religion,
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There are different families.
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There are different individuals.
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I say there’s three levels of assessment, the religion, the family that’s living that religion, and then the individual that’s part of that family.
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Because even in a family, you can have a family that’s quite progressive within a certain congregation.
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But one of the kids that comes out of that family trends more orthodox, right?
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And so you just can’t make a lot of assumptions.
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And assessment is really important.
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Just for those, I mean, even for myself, so I can take a quick note here.
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You were saying, what are the three levels of assessment when we’re looking at the religious background of a client?
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Yeah, so looking at the religion itself, you know, where does it land on the spectrum of, you know, flexibility?
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Mm-hmm.
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Where does it have like a tension with the wider culture?
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And I think I get this from Acts of Faith written by Stark and Fink, which they talked about ultra liberal to ultra strict, and they kind of came up with six different categories.
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And it wasn’t based on doctrine per se, it was based on what are the expectations that a person is supposed to meet in order to be considered part of that community.
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Right.
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So, for example, Catholics and Mormons both believe that you shouldn’t have premarital sex.
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But Mormons are actually more strict and will take more punitive measures if you don’t adhere to those standards than maybe the Catholic community would.
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Right.
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So that that’s the difference that they were trying to sort out.
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And so that’s that’s the first thing is you have to think, OK, well, where is this religion kind of on that spectrum of degrees with tension with the wider culture?
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And then if the client in front of you comes from a family, how were they raised, right?
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Was that a very Orthodox family?
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Did they take everything very seriously?
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Were they the kind of family that only went to church once, you know, on the holidays, right?
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They’re like a less adherent family system.
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And then what about the individual in front of you?
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How did they respond on that level of flexibility to their religious community as well?
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So we’re looking at self-family and kind of culture.
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Yeah.
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That’s fascinating because I know when we’re going through assessments, you know, at the top of my assessments, I will usually have religion as the first thing following, obviously, the referral and all that.
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Why clients come in into the office in the first place?
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Why seeking mental health?
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But religion is one of those things as quick and easy to drive by.
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You might ask what somebody’s faith is or the religion and say, oh, I’m Christian, or I’ll usually go a little deeper, say, do you have a home church?
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But then a lot of times, just like any assessment, you never know what is going to be relevant.
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So I think sometimes there’s the temptation to drive past things pretty quick, but then it might not come up in the religion topic as we’re asking questions.
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It might come up when we’re talking about family.
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And somebody, oh, I was raised in a such and such religious home and they were very strict.
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And that might lead to other things when you start talking about social relationships and you’re like, oh, my boyfriend.
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Well, then you’re, you know, if you’re connecting the dots, then you might circle back to religion and say, hmm, is there a conflict here?
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right and so we have to be looking at all of these aspects of the self and how clients relate to society and what their what their faith what role that may play yeah in terms of internal conflict right values yeah and this is an area where we really kind of falter a bit as a field um i know in 2015
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The Psychiatric Association came out with a position statement saying, look, religion is a form of diversity.
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And as far as cultural competence and training, we need to be trained in how to work with this topic.
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And yet most training centers do not really include much training on religion at all.
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I mean, it’s kind of lumped into cultural and diversity training.
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We get a lot more training on ethnicity and race and minorities and that sort, but not so much.
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I mean, we mentioned religion, but religion is so vast and most psychotherapists and counselors just don’t really know how to address these issues in a way that maybe won’t come across as offensive or dismissive or minimizing.
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um we trend as a profession to be non-religious and so then secular therapists a lot of times will not know how to bring up religion or how to even understand the import that it might have for some people for example a common complaint i get from a faith transition is they went to a therapist and the therapist says something like well you know yeah why don’t you find a church that you feel better about right or
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not really understanding the cost of what it means to leave one’s own religious community and how the community may be reacting to that.
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So we don’t have the training.
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Oh, and then the other problem, too, is that those of us who are religious and are therapists, sometimes we struggle, too, with ethics and boundaries and treating people in a way where we’re not imposing our own religious bias onto our clients.
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So it’s kind of messy either way.
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Sounds tricky, right?
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right countertransference exactly right and this is why training is so important and i’ll just put in a plug right here but i’m developing this program called learn religiontherapy.com and it’s really based on ces for therapists to know how to work with
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religiously conservative folks with lgbtq folks coming out of religion with parents of you know lgbtq minors who don’t really know how to be affirming just so so many things faith transitions religious traumas if you’re interested in that definitely check me out there
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For sure, definitely.
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We’ll put that up in the show notes.
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I want to learn more about that.
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Much to your point, I sometimes will make assumptions about another religion, or if I don’t understand a lot about it, sometimes I’ll not do the extra work to ask all the questions to better understand, which makes me wonder, you know,
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Because I want to be a better therapist.
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What are some assessment questions that you have found to be really useful when we are trying to understand a client’s religious background or belief system?
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Something that can get us to the third layer quicker.
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Yeah, right.
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And just so you know, if you go to this website, learnreligiontherapy.com and sign up for my email list, you actually get a free ecosystemic assessment questionnaire that I’ve come up with that will help you with all these questions that I think are useful anyway.
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Can you say that one more time?
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Learnreligiontherapy.com.
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And if you sign up for the email…
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Yeah, you’ll get that free assessment tool.
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Awesome.
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There you go, everybody.
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Value already.
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Yeah, I hope so.
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I’m all about value.
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And I’m like you.
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I’m always trying to be better at what we do, right, which is hard.
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That’s right.
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But, yeah, I think, first of all, you know, the research shows that people just want to be asked about their religion and spirituality.
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Much like sexuality, it’s a topic that’s kind of personal, and people wonder if the therapist might have some –
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don’t know like some misgivings or some bias against religion so a lot of people won’t bring it up to their therapist just like they won’t bring up sexuality because they’re not sure it’s safe they’re not sure they’ll offend the therapist you know it’s always kind of classic when a client is trying to protect us right yes that’s not their job a lot of clients are used to having to to uh
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be cautious with what they self-disclose to other people.
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If it’s their first time in therapy too, they may not understand that it’s ideally a judgment-free zone.
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Right.
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The research shows that they want us to ask about it.
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You can just say, hey, I notice here on my intake form, like you said, it’s good to have it on your intake form.
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that you mentioned that you come from a Methodist background.
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Tell me all about that.
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How important is your religious life currently?
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What type of religious upbringing did you have?
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Do you feel like on the spectrum of very orthodox and conservative to more flexible?
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How do you think your parents did?
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What kinds of messages did you receive?
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What messages did you receive about God?
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Was this, you know, like an all loving type of entity or kind of more of a disciplinary type of entity?
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And I think that’s really important to do, even if you share the same religion with your clients, because a lot of times when you share the same religion, people will assume that you have the same ideas that you do.
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So I’ll usually say, for example, tell me about your Latter-day Saint God, because even though I’m Latter-day Saint, that doesn’t mean that we have the same perspective of who God is.
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Absolutely.
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So being careful to not make assumptions.
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Yeah.
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And then also asking like what their current involvement is.
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Do they currently go to church?
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Why or why not?
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Are they going through any type of transition or shifts in their beliefs?
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If so, how has their community, you know, have they respected that and supported that or have they been, have they gone kind of silent or have they even gone kind of punitive with them?
24:28.170 –> 24:30.452
what forms of worship are helpful for them.
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You know, do they find prayer helpful, scripture reading, fasting?
24:34.175 –> 24:38.938
You know, there’s lots of kind of religious practices that people will engage in.
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And some people find those like tedious and like, I just do them because I’m supposed to do them.
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I feel guilty if I don’t.
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And other people find them very therapeutic.
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You know, for some people, prayer and meditation can be part of their mental health.
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I think that when I’m assessing, that’s usually the angle I’m coming from is a strength-based perspective.
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I think of faith as a support system.
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I think if some person has a faith or a faith background, that’s something we can use to shore up the treatment as an opportunity.
25:12.821 –> 25:15.022
But something I don’t typically consider is
25:16.602 –> 25:41.136
the antithesis what if they had a traumatic experience with their religious sect which or their family or their support system and now they’re kind of reeling from that because that’s a loss right that can be a big loss that can be a lot you know cause a lot of problems um which causes me to think you know since this is your wheelhouse right what what are some of the common
25:43.132 –> 25:53.377
experiences you come across when it comes to religious trauma or sexual shame and that whole intersection, like what are some of the patterns you’ve noticed?
25:53.956 –> 25:54.376
Yeah.
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Well, sometimes a trauma can happen just within the community as far as traumatic experiences like clergy abuse, you know, clergy sexual abuse.
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I mean, the Catholic Church, of course, had a huge scandal around this, but I don’t know any church community that doesn’t have some level of sexual abuse that’s happening within.
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And so even if a person still has a testimony or a belief in their tradition, but they experienced this abuse within the church community, that can be very confusing.
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How would God, for example, allow this thing to happen by my pastor or my bishop or my priest?
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That can be very confusing.
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confusing and cause some cognitive dissonance and worry and frustration.
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And then they’re returning to this place of worship where they have some of those triggers and they may need help addressing that.
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But they still want to be involved.
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They still believe they still find the community as a whole very helpful.
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So that’s one type of religious trauma.
26:58.083 –> 27:12.390
The other type of religious trauma is when people eventually get to the point where they feel like the religious teachings in of themselves that they feel now indoctrinated by were harmful to them, right?
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And when you think about
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Some of these more strict religions, they can be very incessive about telling you that they are the one and right way.
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There is no other way that is correct.
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So already it’s like, if you have any questions or doubts, those are not really supported.
27:32.910 –> 27:40.897
you’re supposed to, you know, like in my church, they have this like doubt your doubts, like, like don’t, don’t pay attention to your doubts.
27:40.978 –> 27:41.138
Right.
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Which is not really a form of critical thinking skills or things like that.
27:44.821 –> 27:45.662
Um,
27:46.397 –> 27:55.109
A lot of times these more conservative or fundamental churches will tell you a lot about your identity, who you are, why you’re here, where you’re going, how you’re supposed to be.
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And they tend to be very heteronormative and very kind of idealistic to, you know, get married, have children.
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you know, live a chaste life, live, you know, within our ideas.
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And there can be a lot of messaging even that came from, oh, I forget now his name, but it was Catholic priest back, I think in the 1400s, where they really started talking about this, the natural man, right?
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The natural man, which is kind of this idea that you have these drives and these temptations and these things within you,
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that are going to lead you towards gluttony and, you know, distress and not being able to be in balance with your life.
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And so a lot of people feel like, boy, I wasn’t even taught to trust myself or to trust my own instincts or to trust my own self.
28:43.713 –> 28:52.160
Um, you know, that self-consciousness because I was already being told, no, if it, if it differs from anything that I’m being told, I’m not supposed to trust myself.
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So that can feel traumatic.
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Right.
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And then a lot of people were taught kind of scary things like, you know, you have this God who can always see you.
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You’ve got the Satan who knows how to get into your mind and knows how to tempt you, knows how to, you know, wants to take you over and the demons are out there to try to get you.
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And if you don’t conform, you’re going to hell and you’re going to lose everything if you don’t do you know, if you don’t remain worthy or righteous or whatever language some of these religions can have.
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And so that can leave this kind of fear based kind of
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undermining feeling um and then of course a lot of that is tied to sexuality you know don’t touch your own body don’t have sexual thoughts don’t lust don’t you know only have you know sex in a very conforming spaces like heterosexually in marriage anything outside of that is bad and even people who do fall into like a heterosexual format where they would want to marry um a person
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In the church, they often tell me, it’s not like I could just turn the on switch back.
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It’s like I was told sex was bad and evil and dirty and perverse, and then all of a sudden I did get married, but it wasn’t like I could just be like, oh, great, now I can have great sex.
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There was still a lot of that fear-based energy that was there.
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So that’s the kind of religious trauma that people oftentimes feel like they were traumatized by the teachings themselves.
30:25.071 –> 30:25.952
That makes a lot of sense.
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I think about, you know, compartmentalization.
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The more we have to compartmentalize ourselves and our understandings and great contingencies about our
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behavior like you said especially if it’s opposed to maybe what would come natural or trusting our own instincts it can it can create sometimes quite an internal conflict for people right when it’s so polarized yes you know that’s not to say any religion is right or wrong or good or bad but it’s
31:00.467 –> 31:03.988
more about the human condition, right?
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How our psychology works, right?
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When we have alignment with our values, when we live in congruence with our values, and then we are acting in the way in which we intend to act and do the things in which we intend to do, then we have good mental health.
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Yeah, right.
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When we’re living a life that is in friction with our values, or at odds with our beliefs about ourselves, right, or intentions, if our actions are not in line with our intentions, then we have all kinds of stress, conflict, we have somatic symptoms that arise, right?
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Especially in light of trauma, we don’t make the best decisions.
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Yeah, that mindset, right?
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Yeah, especially when you feel like you have to hide a certain aspect of yourself.
31:47.123 –> 31:54.529
When you’re talking about values, I immediately think, well, for people in some of these communities, they’re not really allowed to develop their own values.
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They’re given their values, right?
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These are the values.
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These are the values that God has for you, and we as a community are going to make sure that you live this way.
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And so then now you’ve got this conflict of like your community religious values that are being imposed upon you.
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And some of those may resonate and some of them may not because you have your own values, but they’re not being encouraged to be developed.
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Right.
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Then you have that tension that you may be you may be adhering to values that you think you have.
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But they’re, you know, like a gay person, for example, who’s praying the gay away.
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You know, that’s very common in these communities.
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They may think, well, I’m feeling good because I’m praying and this is in coherence with my values, right?
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Because I’m not supposed to be gay and I’m praying, I’m getting closer to God and I’m kind of becoming scrupulous and OCD.
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And for a while they may feel actually okay.
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like you’re saying, good, because they’re doing the right thing.
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But then there’s this other aspect of them that is more just their general sense of being that has different values, the value of self-expression, the value of self-orientation and sexual identity.
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And so there’s this side of them that’s fighting this other part of them.
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And that’s where that cognitive dissonance starts happening, usually at some point in their lives.
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And that can cause tremendous distress.
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And like you’re saying, when these things don’t align, it affects mental health symptoms.
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But we now know that it affects physical health symptoms, you know, autoimmunity and digestion and chronic stress and heart attacks.
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Relationship distress, right?
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Relationship distress.
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And there’s a lot of people, for example, in mixed orientation marriages,
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in these communities because there was so much pressure to marry heterosexually, even if that wasn’t your identity.
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You weren’t really allowed to have a sexual identity outside of heterosexuality.
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And so then they’ll marry and again, try to do these right things, but 10, 20,
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30 years later that may not be working anymore.
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And then that causes immense distress.
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Sure.
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And I think a lot of the therapists out there, myself included, have worked with clients and sometimes the deviance to the prescribed value system is a few degrees, right?
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And sometimes it’s very polarized, right?
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Or even taboo.
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Mm-hmm.
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which begs the question you know when somebody is wanting to live in accordance with their spiritual beliefs they believe in a higher power they believe in a god or what have you and they want to live a life in accordance to these things but the the ante in which the cost right the pay to play the
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barrier to entry requires something other than their default or whatever you want to call it, their personality, their temperament, their sexuality.
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As therapists, what interventions can we utilize or try and implement
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To help clients have more of an alignment, because otherwise, oftentimes what I’ve seen with clients is they will try to be the good Christian or they will try to be the good X, Y or Z. And like you said, repress the self.
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But then oftentimes.
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it manifests anyway and then there’s a lot of the shame and guilt and frustration and then that actually does a lot of unnecessary damage to their mental health because they don’t know how to negotiate this thing right which you know and yet they want to belong they want to be a part of they want to be accepted they want their fellowship or they want to have
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to feel like they’re living out their faith.
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What?
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Because this is tricky stuff, right?
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And it’s a whole spectrum.
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Yeah, you know, and I find myself scratching my head with clients, you know, a lot of the time and thinking like, what?
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Because it’s such a personal thing, how they define their faith, you can’t tell somebody how to prescribe their faith, you know, oh, you can just, you know, focus on this part of your religion and try not to worry about the rest, because that’s, that’s tricky, because it is so unique to them.
36:30.620 –> 36:48.776
right right um and what i do find a lot of a lot of time happening is they will they will oftentimes you know make a hard and fast choice you know and if it’s not deny themselves their sexuality or other parts of their being then they’ll deny themselves their spiritual
36:50.840 –> 36:54.043
Right, because they’re kind of pitted against the other, right?
36:54.164 –> 36:56.426
A lot of times that’s what the religion is saying.
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You either choose God or you choose the world, which is all these things, which now, of course, we know are just part of sexual diversity.
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I mean, anything like BDSM, non-monogamy, sexual orientation, gender identity, like so many of these things are just part of the…
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human diversity how we show up right they’re not necessarily things people are choosing right they’re things that are part of our erotic templates for for reasons that are very complex you know and very um interesting and as far as understanding you know why our sexuality develops in certain ways but most people don’t choose what turns them on you know
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It just kind of develops over time.
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So I think this is another area where it’s important to do some assessment because not only are you assessing the religion and the family and kind of the system they come from, you want to assess kind of where they are now, right?
37:52.633 –> 37:58.438
So are they still, like you’re saying, a believer and they’re trying to get mental health help?
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But you as a therapist are seeing how maybe some of their religious worship or ideas are maybe interfering with some of what we might consider mental health practices, right?
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Like self-determination, for example.
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And that’s probably the trickiest, you know, group to work with because we’re wanting to meet them where they’re at and respect their religious values.
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And we’re seeing kind of some of these dilemmas that are coming up for them.
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Then you might have people who are questioning, you know, they’re still in, like you’re saying, they already may be pretty good at kind of cafeteria and taking a cafeteria approach to their religion.
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Like, you know, I really love this about my church and my religion.
38:41.145 –> 38:46.830
I mean, how many Catholics have I worked with, for example, who don’t use, you know, who do use birth control?
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You know, that goes against their religion.
38:49.853 –> 39:02.218
I guess, religious doctrine, but they’re like, eh, you know, like I’m okay with that, you know, but I still believe in God and I still have my community and I still, you know, love my Catholic tradition and beliefs.
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And then you have people who are leaving, actively leaving their faith or have left their faith.
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And they, they may be one, um,
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they may not even care too much about their faith.
39:13.326 –> 39:24.509
But since we’re talking about religious trauma, usually the post people I’m talking about are the ones who are very angry and upset and going through a really pretty tremendous grief process of something that they’ve lost.
39:24.669 –> 39:35.413
So depending on where your client is will depend maybe some of the interventions or strategies that you want to develop or your treatment planning around some of these issues.
39:36.133 –> 39:45.958
So with the first case that you talked about, when there’s some of these, you know, they’re still wanting to belong to their community, but you’re noticing some things.
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I think this is challenging.
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And I think the first part that we have to do as therapists is be good listeners and be good joiners.
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You know, like that’s the first intervention.
39:56.204 –> 39:58.646
Usually joining with your client, not challenging.
39:58.666 –> 40:06.913
I mean, I’ve usually lost, rightfully so, clients when I say something on session one, like, well, I don’t think masturbation is a sin.
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And they’re like, well, I’m out of here.
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And I’m like, you know what?
40:11.096 –> 40:13.078
I think that was microaggressive on my part.
40:13.198 –> 40:17.782
I think they shared with me a belief that they had and I discounted it.
40:18.082 –> 40:20.244
And I said, well, I don’t have that same belief anymore.
40:20.504 –> 40:23.707
And that wasn’t helpful to the therapeutic process.
40:23.747 –> 40:27.111
So those are mistakes I’ve made along the way that I’ve learned.
40:27.731 –> 40:29.453
I can’t just impose my beliefs.
40:30.013 –> 40:35.919
And in fact, that’s another thing I would really recommend is hardly ever use the I as a therapist.
40:35.939 –> 40:37.320
Like, I don’t believe that’s true.
40:38.504 –> 40:40.405
I don’t believe in that type of a God.
40:42.045 –> 40:46.847
Or even if you do believe in God, to say, well, to even just imply that there’s a God.
40:47.227 –> 40:54.709
I went to a therapist with one of my kiddos who was struggling with anxiety, and the therapist said, well, I don’t think God would want you to feel that way.
40:55.270 –> 40:58.671
Without ever asking us, first of all, do we even believe in God?
40:59.511 –> 41:02.734
Was he talking to a deist family?
41:02.754 –> 41:03.775
I don’t know.
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You know, we could have been atheists for all he knew, but he was imposing his beliefs about God.
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And then he’s telling us how his God functions, where that may not be our God.
41:14.643 –> 41:18.887
You know, maybe his God doesn’t want him to have anxiety, but who knows about our God?
41:18.907 –> 41:18.987
Yeah.
41:20.962 –> 41:36.730
Our God may see that as a perfectly, I don’t know, functional trial and tribulation to go through in this world, you know, so you just can’t make, so I think stay away from I. I think a lot of times what I try to do now is just say, well, you know, here’s a dilemma I see.
41:36.750 –> 41:42.572
You know, on the one hand, you have this really tender belief, you know, this really important belief.
41:43.553 –> 41:47.115
And in the social science fields, through research, we know this.
41:48.075 –> 41:50.676
This is kind of something that we found out about humans.
41:52.057 –> 41:55.679
Oh, what are we gonna do with that dilemma?
41:56.760 –> 41:59.261
So I’m just putting information on the table.
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I’m not saying you have to choose this or you have to choose that.
42:02.102 –> 42:07.385
I’m just saying, wow, this is a dilemma that you’re really facing.
42:07.905 –> 42:08.906
Let’s talk about this.
42:10.447 –> 42:16.150
And we know that’s where the healing actually takes place is addressing the pink elephant, right?
42:17.031 –> 42:22.692
And you’re offering some psycho education, because sometimes they don’t know that thing that you’re bringing up from the research.
42:23.533 –> 42:31.935
But you’re also offering them the, the respect for self determination in your office, at least, for what they’re gonna think.
42:33.095 –> 42:34.355
A breathing space, right?
42:34.395 –> 42:45.158
Because when we think about polarized environments, especially religious ones, that are at conflict with the self, right, there’s oftentimes not
42:47.499 –> 43:03.729
a safe space to breathe, let your mind breathe and put your thoughts out there and ask the questions and have a sounding board where you can really just explore what you even believe or think about the situation.
43:03.789 –> 43:13.636
Because oftentimes, going back to that compartmentalization, there’s so much containment, containment, containment in these environments and these dynamics that clients often
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you know, will get in the habit of avoiding, you know, whenever this, this conflict arises within themselves, they just, you know, push it away.
43:25.916 –> 43:26.636
Right.
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Right.
43:27.536 –> 43:31.377
And that’s also what leads to some other, you know, unhealthy behaviors, right?
43:31.477 –> 43:40.419
Substance abuse, um, impulsive decisions because they’re acting out of emotion from repressing a lot.
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Right.
43:40.899 –> 43:41.179
Yeah.
43:41.219 –> 43:43.620
Suppression is never a really healthy way to go.
43:43.700 –> 43:44.040
So even
43:45.980 –> 43:51.569
Educating people about that, you know, are you are you noticing, you know, stomach aches?
43:51.629 –> 43:53.291
Are you noticing panic attacks?
43:53.351 –> 43:59.040
Are you noticing yourself moving towards behaviors that, you know, don’t necessarily exist?
44:01.209 –> 44:02.710
you know, are out of balance with your life.
44:02.790 –> 44:07.873
Like there’s a difference between having a drink every now and then, or being substance dependent, right.
44:07.893 –> 44:12.776
Or even, even behaviors, you know, like gaming or watching TV.
44:12.836 –> 44:17.859
I mean, there’s ways to do that that are super healthy and actually part of rest and leisure.
44:17.979 –> 44:29.305
And there’s ways to do those things that can kind of, are just kind of numbing because you’re having such a hard time with focusing on, you know, facing some of these issues in your life.
44:29.425 –> 44:29.866
And so, um,
44:30.726 –> 44:51.840
um that can be another in you know like i’m noticing that there’s a lot of ways that you numb or that you hide or that you can’t be honest with people in your life and i wonder what toll that’s taking on you you know in order to adhere to this kind of religious expectation and and what what is that like for you um
44:54.130 –> 44:59.856
I think it’s also, you know, I think another strategy you can use is oftentimes permission giving.
44:59.876 –> 45:06.764
And I think that this is something that is, you can do just by sharing information about the community.
45:06.944 –> 45:08.486
Like for example,
45:09.861 –> 45:22.529
I work with quite a few non-monogamous folks, and I was working with some couples where at least one of the persons in that partnership was still attending their church.
45:23.370 –> 45:29.413
And they were like, well, geez, that would be so hypocritical if I entered the lifestyle and still went to church.
45:29.453 –> 45:30.154
I have to choose.
45:30.914 –> 45:36.336
And so then I’ll just say, well, you know, just so you know, I know many people in your church community.
45:36.757 –> 45:51.803
There are many people in your church community who actually balance that having both, not necessarily openly to their community, but they keep that part private and they do enjoy their church membership and fellowship.
45:52.764 –> 45:54.985
And they also participate in the lifestyle.
45:56.269 –> 45:57.130
That’s all I say.
45:57.150 –> 45:59.171
I don’t say, I think you should do that.
45:59.231 –> 46:01.012
I don’t think it’s something you should consider.
46:01.552 –> 46:05.014
I’m just like, just so you know, there are people who do this.
46:05.875 –> 46:06.855
Yeah.
46:07.936 –> 46:11.518
That there, you know, it is one way of living one way of being right.
46:11.598 –> 46:17.602
So it, it, it, it just gives this permission, like, and it can be as simple as masturbation, right?
46:17.622 –> 46:24.586
Like, Oh, by the way, I know people in the, in the Latter-day Saint community who masturbate and still go to the temple, right?
46:25.174 –> 46:27.235
Like that’s actually not that uncommon.
46:27.796 –> 46:28.816
And that’s all I’ll say.
46:28.836 –> 46:30.677
And so it has them thinking, huh.
46:32.158 –> 46:37.802
It kind of forces them to see themselves, because so many of these things are happening in isolation.
46:37.902 –> 46:40.203
It’s like they’re not talking to their community members about it.
46:40.884 –> 46:43.005
And even if they did, nobody’s admitting anything.
46:43.025 –> 46:52.491
So there’s a lot of feeling of isolation and secrecy and I’m alone and I must be the only person who’s dealing with this issue.
46:53.531 –> 47:05.798
But so when I say something like that, as a therapist, I’ve worked with many people like you facing the same dilemma and they have chosen kind of a more hybrid approach that plants a seed for them of permission.
47:06.118 –> 47:07.979
Like, huh, maybe I could do that too.
47:08.059 –> 47:12.621
They may not, but I’m just letting that information sit there.
47:12.641 –> 47:13.642
Right.
47:13.682 –> 47:20.785
And I think that does a lot, you know, because everyone assumes they’re the only one that is walking, you know, walking around with a sense of stigma.
47:21.566 –> 47:21.746
Right.
47:22.188 –> 47:48.162
right and so when when it can be normalized to some extent when people know they’re not alone then it at least opens up the conversation even with the self right exactly okay because then again it’s not so polarized right right and you know it’s interesting because you me all of the other therapists joining us today or who watch this replay you know we have this special
47:49.673 –> 47:55.696
position is a very, I’m very honored and privileged to have this position, but we’re privileged to people’s, you know, skeletons.
47:56.296 –> 47:56.616
Yeah.
47:57.537 –> 48:01.799
And sometimes we’re the only person privileged to those skeletons.
48:02.179 –> 48:02.339
Yeah.
48:02.739 –> 48:12.804
And so I think that’s one of the reasons therapy so impactful is because it gives it gives people a breathing room where they can exhale a little bit and talk about
48:14.053 –> 48:17.594
you know, why they’ve been keeping the skeleton in the closet in the first place.
48:17.954 –> 48:18.914
Maybe it’s not even a skeleton.
48:19.234 –> 48:30.317
They just thought it was, you know, and so it’s, um, such a powerful outlet to have, you know, for, for everyone to realize that they’re not siloed.
48:31.557 –> 48:31.957
Right.
48:32.257 –> 48:33.357
They don’t have to be siloed.
48:33.958 –> 48:34.678
Right.
48:34.818 –> 48:35.878
And not to say that,
48:37.162 –> 48:41.124
You know, everyone should walk around self-disclosing everything because that’s not safe either.
48:41.144 –> 48:41.944
Right.
48:41.984 –> 48:43.064
Not everybody’s understanding.
48:43.104 –> 48:45.885
And there can be complex trauma associated with that.
48:46.606 –> 48:46.846
Right.
48:48.486 –> 48:52.688
But to have a safe place to process the self is really, really important.
48:53.368 –> 48:54.649
Yeah, for sure.
48:56.272 –> 48:59.196
Um, it’s, it’s the number one therapeutic thing we do.
48:59.556 –> 48:59.857
Right.
49:00.217 –> 49:10.050
And so, and, and as you bring up CPTSD, I, I do think it’s important for therapists cuz you know, religious trauma syndrome was coined by Marlene Winnell decades ago.
49:10.765 –> 49:12.446
wasn’t taken very seriously at first.
49:12.486 –> 49:15.046
In fact, I was even one of those counselors that was like, what?
49:16.707 –> 49:19.408
But we’re having more and more research really support it.
49:19.828 –> 49:28.491
You’re not going to find it in the DSM under religious trauma syndrome, but it does, when you start really looking at the CPTSD criteria, it does fit that.
49:28.591 –> 49:37.274
So people can get diagnosed with PTSD, which is actually very helpful, especially in states where maybe there’s medical marijuana or
49:37.794 –> 49:50.245
Ketamine treatments or, you know, or just to help with whatever treatment assessing you’re going to do to take a trauma informed lens towards some of these issues that people are presenting with.
49:50.885 –> 49:58.092
So that’s where correct assessment and diagnosis is so important when it comes to this as well, is to help people have the resources they need.
49:59.613 –> 50:09.442
I haven’t had this happen a whole lot, but I’ve even done some disability paperwork for people with CPTSD due to religious trauma.
50:10.390 –> 50:11.551
Yeah, that’s important to know.
50:11.771 –> 50:13.092
It is a thing.
50:13.132 –> 50:15.914
And like all traumas, it’s a spectrum.
50:17.115 –> 50:18.356
And every situation’s unique.
50:18.376 –> 50:28.403
And just because you don’t necessarily feel like you’re worthy of calling it trauma doesn’t mean it’s not trauma.
50:28.423 –> 50:28.983
Yeah, right.
50:30.104 –> 50:34.127
And that’s where I don’t want secular therapists to be like, oh, that’s just a religious thing.
50:34.167 –> 50:37.609
That doesn’t sound like that would fit into the trauma sphere.
50:37.629 –> 50:39.831
And this is why it’s important that we educate ourselves about
50:40.865 –> 50:44.327
how this definitely can fit under the CPTSD umbrella.
50:44.367 –> 50:51.530
Anything that affects our sense of identity, our sense of security in the world, right?
50:51.550 –> 50:55.632
I mean, it doesn’t get much more personal than our value system.
50:56.292 –> 50:56.832
Yeah.
50:57.432 –> 51:01.894
That really, I mean, talk about a shortcut to the subconscious, you know.
51:02.535 –> 51:03.815
Right, right.
51:04.015 –> 51:04.375
That’s it.
51:07.600 –> 51:34.210
so you you got into this work because you had a deeply personal experience yourself did you want to share a little bit about that no pressure yeah no i i’m fine i don’t mind talking about myself that’s fine but yes i definitely went through a very personal raw experience back in 2021 so um where i was excommunicated from my church so that was a formal process where the church
51:35.150 –> 51:44.180
decided that they were going to discipline me and punish me by basically removing my membership from the church that I have been a member of my whole life.
51:45.241 –> 51:47.623
My parents were converts when I was about five years old.
51:47.684 –> 51:51.267
I remember kind of the LDS missionaries coming to my door and everything.
51:51.347 –> 51:51.447
So
51:52.793 –> 51:54.474
It’s been pretty much everything I can remember.
51:55.034 –> 52:02.818
And about, let’s see, I want to say about 2012-ish, I want to say I started blogging.
52:02.838 –> 52:04.339
I started writing.
52:04.379 –> 52:07.801
I started being more public about positions.
52:08.762 –> 52:10.462
I wrote a blog called The Mormon Therapist.
52:10.482 –> 52:12.984
It was kind of supposed to be a Dear Abby, you know, but for Mormons.
52:16.546 –> 52:22.489
And I thought I was going to get questions on parenting, like my teenager doesn’t want to go to church, and what should I do?
52:22.629 –> 52:27.671
Or my spouse has different religious ideas than I do, marital issues.
52:28.392 –> 52:33.194
And guess what happens when you make an avenue open for anonymous questions?
52:33.274 –> 52:35.616
Well, about 80% of them were about sex.
52:36.576 –> 53:01.737
and sexuality right like is it okay for me and my husband or wife to have oral sex you know is it okay for us to have anal sex is it okay for uh you know what should i do with all this guilt for the premarital sex i had you know so lots and lots of sexual questions um which is what got me interested in getting my certification as a sex therapist because at first i was like oh yeah sure i’m a marriage and family therapist i know something about sex and then
53:02.498 –> 53:07.223
the more in-depth the questions got, I was like, you know, I didn’t really get a whole lot of training in sex.
53:07.924 –> 53:09.406
And that’s another area, right?
53:09.626 –> 53:11.288
We just don’t get a lot of training in.
53:11.348 –> 53:14.892
If we get one course in our master’s degree, that’s actually good.
53:15.493 –> 53:17.094
There’s some that don’t offer anything.
53:17.114 –> 53:17.155
So
53:18.596 –> 53:22.477
So I went through ASECT and got my certification, which is a big process itself.
53:24.477 –> 53:26.458
And so I started advocating.
53:26.738 –> 53:33.080
I started talking about why do we make young people feel badly about touching their own bodies?
53:33.200 –> 53:46.203
Couldn’t we use masturbation and self touch and self exploration as actually powerful tools to help them prepare for marriage and successful sex and also having boundaries in their teenager land?
53:47.922 –> 54:00.949
Um, if you can, if you always know you can come home to yourself and take care of yourself, you might not be as pressured, you know, by other kids to have sexual experiences, maybe before you’re ready or before that go against your own religious values, et cetera.
54:01.009 –> 54:04.991
So I started kind of pushing the envelope on things like that.
54:05.031 –> 54:07.373
The next envelope I pushed was gay rights.
54:07.493 –> 54:13.576
You know, what are we going to do about our gay members and treating them like second class citizens is not going to work.
54:13.656 –> 54:14.737
And we’re having really.
54:15.257 –> 54:18.262
really tragic consequences when we do this, like
54:18.865 –> 54:33.171
Like there’s blood on our hands, church, because we know that non-affirming spaces will raise the rights of suicidality and many other health symptoms, including risky sex, including STIs, including substance abuse.
54:33.932 –> 54:44.396
Like so many ways people try to cope when they’re rejected by something as important as their church community for something that is just part of who they are as a human being.
54:45.177 –> 54:47.618
So I started talking about supporting gay marriage and
54:48.294 –> 54:58.817
supporting our LGBTQ members, including our transgender members, which we’re still having a big fight about right now in the United States, as you can see with all so much legislation.
54:58.917 –> 55:03.879
So that was another button I was pushing.
55:04.279 –> 55:07.400
I also pushed the button on pornography
55:08.760 –> 55:15.668
A lot of these conservative churches will really push the sex addiction model and send everybody to sex addiction treatments.
55:15.728 –> 55:20.194
And it doesn’t even matter whether you’re watching porn once a year or twice a day.
55:20.214 –> 55:21.455
You know, you’re a sex addict.
55:21.475 –> 55:22.837
There’s like no spectruming.
55:22.857 –> 55:25.220
And I saw this in evangelical Wichita as well.
55:26.144 –> 55:33.607
And I did so much research and so much trying to figure out how can we help people with these dilemmas.
55:33.727 –> 55:36.828
And a lot of times it’s not that it’s out of control sexual behavior.
55:36.848 –> 55:40.149
It’s just that sexual behavior goes against your religious values.
55:40.169 –> 55:43.991
So I started speaking up that this addiction model is not effective.
55:44.531 –> 55:45.071
effective.
55:45.111 –> 55:47.733
It’s not even clinically researched.
55:47.793 –> 55:50.415
It’s not seen as a correct treatment approach.
55:51.876 –> 55:58.341
And I got a lot of pushback from that and not just from the Mormon community, but from the CSAT community and things like that.
55:58.421 –> 56:00.902
So, so I pushed on that.
56:01.443 –> 56:07.707
And then I became a mama dragon, you know, I had a child come out as a non-binary child.
56:08.550 –> 56:10.692
So it was becoming personal as well.
56:11.312 –> 56:26.283
So I would write and I would speak and I would try to be respectful as I would do that, but I would call out what I felt were non-clinical supported positions that the church was taking that was actually harming our members.
56:26.383 –> 56:30.265
So in 2021, they let me do that actually for quite a while.
56:30.285 –> 56:33.508
I mean, I started this work, like I said, in 2012.
56:34.088 –> 56:37.450
So it was almost a decade later before they said,
56:38.351 –> 56:41.173
We’re not going to allow you to talk like this anymore.
56:41.734 –> 56:48.459
And we’re going to double down and excommunicate you, which is an interesting process in the Mormon community.
56:48.479 –> 56:49.940
Yeah, please tell them.
56:50.020 –> 56:53.363
I mean, I’ve heard about it, but I don’t know the inner workings of what that looks like.
56:54.544 –> 56:59.928
It could be helpful for all of us as therapists, because when somebody says I was excommunicated, we can just think, oh, okay, you were kicked out.
56:59.948 –> 57:02.210
But what is that experience like?
57:02.790 –> 57:06.253
Yeah, so the experience is that you’re called in front of…
57:08.327 –> 57:09.568
leaders in the church.
57:10.048 –> 57:17.811
And they’ve made a few changes to this in the last, I don’t know, maybe five years to make it maybe a little bit less punitive.
57:17.891 –> 57:23.293
But typically, it’s at least four men that are going to be in the room with you.
57:23.913 –> 57:31.436
So the bishopric and the secretary person, or it’s going to be the entire high council, depending on
57:32.385 –> 57:37.288
Usually if you’re a man, it’s taken more seriously than if you’re a woman, there’s gender issues there.
57:37.368 –> 57:39.189
So sometimes the women get the lesser.
57:40.416 –> 58:06.260
amount of of men in the room um but depending also on the sin right that you could have like a larger audience there and if you have if you have the whole high council that’s like 15 men and you by yourself right so there’s a huge high council from your own church or is there like a like a district church yeah so the high council is more like a district it’s kind of like the whole so in in in the mormon world we have
58:06.960 –> 58:08.821
congregations that are considered wards.
58:09.362 –> 58:10.643
Wards is the name of them.
58:11.263 –> 58:18.708
And then I think about like maybe seven to ten wards consist of a stake, which is more like a diocese, if that makes sense.
58:20.109 –> 58:26.573
And so those stake leaders would be the ones 15 from there would come in and do your.
58:26.793 –> 58:29.955
So you come forward and you have your tried.
58:29.995 –> 58:30.856
It’s like a trial.
58:31.576 –> 58:35.199
They kind of even used, you know, like legal language, like
58:35.999 –> 58:37.240
It’s a court.
58:39.222 –> 58:40.903
They try to say, well, it’s a court of love.
58:40.923 –> 58:45.706
I’m like, I don’t think anybody would agree with that who’s been through it, that it’s a court of love.
58:45.726 –> 58:59.797
And you present your case and about the ideas that half of the men are supposed to be kind of representing you or being like advocates of you and half of the men are representing the church and kind of, and that’s the idea.
59:00.097 –> 59:04.541
But again, I’ve not really heard many people say, oh yeah, I came out of there feeling very represented.
59:06.171 –> 59:11.339
So typically by the time you’re in front of that space, something’s going to happen.
59:11.359 –> 59:14.163
There’s not usually much backing out at that point.
59:15.646 –> 59:20.473
So that’s what I was invited to was a court to come and defend my position.
59:22.393 –> 59:27.275
My particular situation went a little wonkier than normal, I think, because they knew that it was somewhat public.
59:28.196 –> 59:31.417
And so I didn’t get really as much time or as much discussion.
59:31.437 –> 59:35.139
I tried to have conversations with these stake leaders before the court.
59:35.199 –> 59:36.499
Nobody really wanted to talk to me.
59:36.519 –> 59:40.461
So it was very upsetting.
59:41.021 –> 59:45.503
And basically, you get a letter in the mail after that that says,
59:46.843 –> 59:49.986
You are no longer a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
59:50.567 –> 01:00:07.905
And for somebody who, you know, from a religious standpoint, from a spiritual standpoint, that has a lot of meaning, especially in my tradition where so many of the, what we call ordinances, the ceremonies, like my baptism, right?
01:00:08.613 –> 01:00:15.258
My sealing in the temple to my family, because Latter-day Saints believe that we can be sealed for time and all eternity.
01:00:15.278 –> 01:00:18.021
It’s kind of like a marriage covenant, but for time and all eternity.
01:00:18.041 –> 01:00:19.101
It does not end at death.
01:00:19.942 –> 01:00:29.610
So my sealing to my family, my parents, my siblings, my marriage, which granted I’m divorced, and I was going through a divorce right at that time.
01:00:30.130 –> 01:00:38.401
However, even if we get worldly divorce, that ceiling is still in place and that affects my children and their capacity to be tied to me.
01:00:39.061 –> 01:00:47.632
So all of these ordinances that had, if not at least very symbolic meaning to me,
01:00:48.709 –> 01:01:04.592
are now null and void with that excommunication right so all of that is is basically said you’re you no longer have access to all of those ceremonies that you once participated in so it’s a it’s a very for me it was it was
01:01:06.270 –> 01:01:07.531
very distressing.
01:01:08.531 –> 01:01:24.084
First of all, to be treated in such a dismissive way, to be treated in such a kind of cast aside type of way, to be treated kind of in a silencing way that like they wouldn’t even listen really to me or to what I had to say.
01:01:24.104 –> 01:01:27.527
Yeah, it was traumatic.
01:01:27.547 –> 01:01:27.647
Yeah.
01:01:28.686 –> 01:01:32.330
It was my own PTSD from that experience.
01:01:32.370 –> 01:01:36.615
And it took me months, if not, like, several years to, I would say, recover.
01:01:36.655 –> 01:01:41.640
And I don’t know what recover means, you know, always, because it’s still very tender to talk about.
01:01:42.021 –> 01:01:45.124
But it will be, you know, a very…
01:01:47.062 –> 01:01:50.987
very monumental moment in my life for the rest of my life.
01:01:52.909 –> 01:02:02.440
So that’s part of the power that churches can wield on individuals’ lives and cause a lot of havoc and sadness.
01:02:02.480 –> 01:02:03.942
And I got to experience it firsthand.
01:02:05.390 –> 01:02:09.514
Yeah, because I mean, there’s a, I would imagine, a large degree of attachment.
01:02:10.395 –> 01:02:16.360
Not just your lifestyle, but your actual psychological attachment to that community.
01:02:16.661 –> 01:02:20.624
And then you’re told you can’t have your community anymore.
01:02:20.644 –> 01:02:22.606
You can’t have your family anymore.
01:02:22.887 –> 01:02:23.807
You can’t participate.
01:02:23.827 –> 01:02:25.369
You’re a black sheep.
01:02:26.570 –> 01:02:27.731
It’s a shunning of sorts.
01:02:27.792 –> 01:02:35.120
I mean, the Amish community, you know, like they’re considered a fundamental religion mainly because if you don’t adhere, you’re shunned.
01:02:35.140 –> 01:02:38.725
I mean, you really, you’re forcibly removed from the community.
01:02:39.445 –> 01:02:41.947
You cannot have contact with your family.
01:02:41.967 –> 01:02:44.568
I mean, I can still have contact with my family.
01:02:44.608 –> 01:02:47.250
I can even still go to the church if I wanted to.
01:02:47.270 –> 01:02:49.512
But I’m not going to be able to participate.
01:02:49.552 –> 01:02:50.672
I’m not going to be included.
01:02:50.692 –> 01:02:55.856
I’m not going to be able to have any of the callings or responsibilities I once enjoyed.
01:02:55.876 –> 01:03:00.899
And I definitely don’t have these blessings that are considered part of this ordinance work.
01:03:00.919 –> 01:03:04.201
So it is an informal shunning that happens.
01:03:05.502 –> 01:03:08.204
And as we know, when humans are shunned,
01:03:09.619 –> 01:03:11.880
that does not bode well for mental health.
01:03:12.520 –> 01:03:13.441
Absolutely not.
01:03:14.221 –> 01:03:19.343
And especially for somebody who has a very strong faith, and they’re shunned.
01:03:20.764 –> 01:03:23.645
You know, that limits their options to practice now.
01:03:25.089 –> 01:03:26.210
Right, right.
01:03:26.270 –> 01:03:38.998
I mean, I, you know, as I talked to myself through this process, and, and I had shifted, I mean, I’m, I, I’ve been pretty honest that I was not necessarily a literal believer by the time that I was becoming excommunicated.
01:03:39.078 –> 01:03:42.961
I was very much a symbolic believer, and I had so much value and meaning and
01:03:44.249 –> 01:03:47.110
and just my spirituality within the Mormon framework.
01:03:47.430 –> 01:03:50.592
And so as I was going through that process, I was like, well, they can’t take that from me.
01:03:50.612 –> 01:03:52.753
You know, they can’t take my spirituality from me.
01:03:52.813 –> 01:04:02.797
They can’t take, you know, these, these values and these ethics and these morals and just kind of everything that encapsulates meaning of life for me now at the same time.
01:04:02.857 –> 01:04:05.858
I mean, you know, you can say that to yourself all day long.
01:04:05.958 –> 01:04:11.781
It just, there’s still this cost, you know, and then this, this very intentional way to, um,
01:04:13.837 –> 01:04:15.558
to discredit you, right?
01:04:15.678 –> 01:04:17.860
I mean, I’m a therapist in the community.
01:04:19.361 –> 01:04:32.169
I’ve helped so many people, mixed faith families, people with perfectionism, people with scrupulosity, people with faith transitions, run of the mill mental health depression, just so many things.
01:04:32.849 –> 01:04:38.413
So you serve your community with all this love and you try to bring better things to it.
01:04:38.493 –> 01:04:41.055
Like, hey, maybe we don’t have to harm so many people.
01:04:41.075 –> 01:04:43.016
Maybe there’s some shifts or changes we can make.
01:04:43.576 –> 01:04:47.537
And as you do that, you know, cause I was coming with, of course they have the priesthood authority.
01:04:47.577 –> 01:04:50.137
I was coming with my authority as, as a clinician, right?
01:04:50.157 –> 01:04:52.338
That’s the authority I’ve been developing for 30 years.
01:04:53.478 –> 01:04:55.278
And they say, no, not interested.
01:04:55.318 –> 01:05:02.220
Not only are we not interested, we’re going to shun you and discredit you so that people within the community will not trust you as a therapist.
01:05:02.700 –> 01:05:02.860
Right.
01:05:03.460 –> 01:05:03.700
Right.
01:05:04.580 –> 01:05:09.161
And we haven’t seen that to be the case because a lot of your clientele actually come, right?
01:05:10.114 –> 01:05:16.459
Well, I think a lot of my clientele come because they’re going through faith transitions and religious trauma, and they saw me go through that.
01:05:17.019 –> 01:05:31.310
But the reality is that for a long time now, since I’ve been advocating, even before the church did anything to me, more Orthodox believers would have lost trust in me because I’m not touting the party line, right?
01:05:31.330 –> 01:05:36.934
I’m not agreeing that masturbation is something we should be treating through a sexual addictions approach.
01:05:37.415 –> 01:05:37.875
process.
01:05:39.317 –> 01:06:02.436
And so that’s, I think a dilemma that religious therapists are in is a lot of times I see religious therapists really acting like their religion is more like their code of ethics and their governing board than, than actually the licensing board and our actual associations codes of ethics, because they are complying with the churches and they are treating the
01:06:03.177 –> 01:06:08.021
you know, they are treating adolescents as sick because they masturbate.
01:06:08.761 –> 01:06:14.906
And that has no clinical basis, but there’s lots of therapists who are doing that or conversion therapists, right?
01:06:15.686 –> 01:06:29.177
And so these are therapists who are much more aligned with their religion and will treat things clinically that they see as quote unquote sick because the religion deems it a sickness, not because it’s in the DSM or ICD.
01:06:29.197 –> 01:06:29.397
Yeah.
01:06:32.310 –> 01:06:48.061
So how can we, as therapists, safeguard against implicit bias from accidentally judging or operating off of a bias to our faith, if that’s the case?
01:06:48.081 –> 01:06:50.262
Because that can be tricky, right?
01:06:50.382 –> 01:06:55.586
I mean, that can be tricky sometimes when we hold certain belief systems.
01:06:55.666 –> 01:07:00.329
How can we safeguard against ourselves from that danger, do you think?
01:07:00.757 –> 01:07:02.699
Yeah, I mean, that’s a great question.
01:07:02.759 –> 01:07:10.886
And I hope that it’s a question we’re all asking ourselves on the regular is what is my current bias and in what areas?
01:07:11.447 –> 01:07:22.997
And this is why I think ongoing CEs, ongoing consultations, ongoing networking with other professionals, listening to programs like this are so important.
01:07:24.338 –> 01:07:26.980
But you can’t just do that with people that…
01:07:28.041 –> 01:07:45.194
sit in your same confirmation bias right like you have to be willing to listen to other perspectives if i mean there might be a lot of latter-day saint professionals here for example there’s even associations like there’s a christian counseling association there’s the
01:07:45.834 –> 01:07:50.437
There’s AMCAP, which I think is Association for Mormon Counselors and Professionals.
01:07:50.497 –> 01:07:59.402
Well, if all you do is gather with other people who are like minded, you’re going to miss all those blind spots that you really need to be looking at.
01:08:00.343 –> 01:08:07.026
And it’s also very common, like I said before, for secular therapists to have a lot of negative implications about religion.
01:08:08.628 –> 01:08:11.431
Freud was not a fan of religion, right?
01:08:11.531 –> 01:08:21.804
He thought it was like ridiculous and infantile and kept people in kind of developmental spaces that were not healthy, which you may or may not agree with.
01:08:22.384 –> 01:08:23.165
That’s okay.
01:08:23.245 –> 01:08:23.406
But
01:08:24.850 –> 01:08:27.571
how does that show up with the clients that are in front of you?
01:08:29.132 –> 01:08:40.416
Because you can have clients where this is an integral part of their life, and if you’re dismissing their religion like it’s silly, that’s definitely not gonna bode for the therapeutic relationship.
01:08:41.593 –> 01:08:42.173
Absolutely.
01:08:42.734 –> 01:08:42.994
Yeah.
01:08:43.214 –> 01:08:47.978
So definitely important to meet clients where they’re at, right?
01:08:48.258 –> 01:08:58.085
To try not to make any assumptions, you know, and ask, ask the questions, try and understand the best we can about their experiences, right?
01:08:58.105 –> 01:08:58.385
Yes.
01:08:58.845 –> 01:09:04.349
And this is crucial for deconstructing shame in general, right?
01:09:04.430 –> 01:09:07.732
Deconstructing sexual shame, religious trauma, all of these things.
01:09:09.042 –> 01:09:22.308
Yeah, and I would say, I mean, obviously this is what we do in therapy anyway, but you meet people where you’re at, where they’re at, and then from that space, you hopefully are able to provide soft challenges, right?
01:09:22.368 –> 01:09:26.550
So not harsh, not rigid, not overly biased, but more like,
01:09:27.530 –> 01:09:28.891
where did you hear that from?
01:09:29.051 –> 01:09:31.833
And how’s that showing up?
01:09:31.893 –> 01:09:33.234
And is that useful or not?
01:09:33.294 –> 01:09:34.395
And why or why not?
01:09:34.475 –> 01:09:40.119
And would it be possible for you to consider these different thoughts?
01:09:40.159 –> 01:09:45.703
Like here’s four other ways we might be able to look at this or any of those possibilities for you or not.
01:09:45.743 –> 01:09:51.227
Because I don’t think as therapists, we just should meet people where they’re at, especially if they’re in unhealthy places.
01:09:51.287 –> 01:09:53.589
I mean, there’s people who belong in cults.
01:09:53.629 –> 01:09:54.850
There’s people who belong to
01:09:56.109 –> 01:10:00.750
I do think some of these practices are not helpful in religion.
01:10:00.831 –> 01:10:12.374
And so how can we show up in a compassionate space where we don’t necessarily feel like we know better than, but we’re able to offer a different perspective and just see whether or not that person might be open to that.
01:10:13.354 –> 01:10:13.734
Excellent.
01:10:14.114 –> 01:10:15.035
Which begs the question,
01:10:16.895 –> 01:10:41.309
For those who are struggling with sexual authenticity or religious trauma, or they’re questioning whether the way they’ve been doing life is in alignment with who they are, their values, what advice would you give to those people seeking recovery, seeking healing?
01:10:41.709 –> 01:10:44.791
What are some initial steps, do you think, or some words of wisdom?
01:10:45.413 –> 01:10:51.216
Yeah, well, I think the first thing is finding an appropriate therapist, and that can be challenging.
01:10:51.316 –> 01:10:56.219
You know, you don’t necessarily want somebody who knows nothing about these topics.
01:10:57.160 –> 01:11:04.944
You don’t necessarily want a religious therapist who’s going to make you feel badly about leaving the faith, which I’ve heard some horror stories on.
01:11:06.125 –> 01:11:12.108
You don’t necessarily want a secular therapist either if they’re not going to be, like, taking your dilemma seriously, right?
01:11:12.168 –> 01:11:12.909
So finding…
01:11:13.689 –> 01:11:16.454
The right therapist is really important.
01:11:17.435 –> 01:11:26.571
Advocating for yourself in that journey is important because, again, if you’re coming from a high-demand religion, you are used to external authority telling you what to do.
01:11:27.569 –> 01:11:53.332
you’ve got a religious leader you’ve got god you’ve got your parents it’s all it’s all very structured as far as like authority and a therapist can fall right back into that you might look to this therapist now to be your new authority and we’re really wanting to stretch that internal authority muscle so even as a therapist myself a lot of times i’m like oh yeah i just gave that great idea and they accepted it so readily and i’m all happy and then i’m like
01:11:54.053 –> 01:11:56.215
Maybe they accepted it too readily.
01:11:56.555 –> 01:11:58.316
Wow, that is such a good point.
01:11:58.376 –> 01:12:02.179
Am I becoming the new authority in their lives, which I don’t want to be.
01:12:02.379 –> 01:12:04.180
I want to help them be their own authority.
01:12:04.810 –> 01:12:06.491
So that’s one thing to look out for.
01:12:06.531 –> 01:12:08.791
There’s so many different modalities.
01:12:08.871 –> 01:12:19.815
I mean, whether it’s EMDR or internal family systems or EFT, emotionally focused therapy, or, you know, Bowenian family system.
01:12:19.855 –> 01:12:23.737
And there’s so many wonderful, beautiful theoretical framings.
01:12:24.617 –> 01:12:27.338
I think they can all do good work in this area.
01:12:27.358 –> 01:12:30.640
I don’t know that you need one particular style of therapy.
01:12:31.480 –> 01:12:37.663
Even psychodrama can be quite fascinating religious trauma.
01:12:37.904 –> 01:12:43.946
So that worries me less than the actual capacity of the therapist to hold space for your experience.
01:12:45.407 –> 01:12:46.948
And to not just become your new
01:12:47.483 –> 01:13:17.003
authority there’s gonna have to be a lot of grief work acceptance work boundaries work boy do we need help boundaries boundaries in this in this population right because we weren’t we were taught just to say yes give away our power right give away your time give away your money give away your talents right and so to be able to say no or to be able to say an intentional yes um and also to be able to maybe still have relationships with people who are in the church
01:13:17.623 –> 01:13:22.548
those can be very challenging things to know how to do and boundary work will be very helpful in that regard.
01:13:24.482 –> 01:13:24.842
Thank you.
01:13:25.002 –> 01:13:26.443
Such wonderful words of wisdom.
01:13:26.603 –> 01:13:28.503
And I think that was a great point.
01:13:28.523 –> 01:13:33.825
I hadn’t thought about, you know, being careful that we don’t allow ourselves to become the quote new authority.
01:13:34.225 –> 01:13:34.805
Right.
01:13:34.885 –> 01:13:44.048
We’re trying to instill a sense of locus of internal control, like the ability to use their own discernment to make decisions for their best own benefit.
01:13:44.288 –> 01:13:44.488
Right.
01:13:44.608 –> 01:13:44.928
Yes.
01:13:45.408 –> 01:13:45.808
Right.
01:13:45.928 –> 01:13:51.870
Again, not to defer to other people all the time because they don’t feel safe with trusting themselves.
01:13:52.470 –> 01:13:52.810
Yes.
01:13:53.171 –> 01:13:53.491
Right.
01:13:54.152 –> 01:14:02.298
And if you’re going to, if you’re going to work on sexuality in particular, you know, ASEC is a great resource, ASEC.org, where there’s like a therapist directory.
01:14:02.358 –> 01:14:07.222
So you can find somebody who’s actually been trained in sexuality because it’s
01:14:07.762 –> 01:14:22.372
even with my couples who are interested in non-monogamy or kink, we’ll get run-of-the-mill therapists who are not necessarily religious themselves, but still have this idea that this is like deviant behavior or must mean that there must be an attachment disorder or commitment issue.
01:14:22.392 –> 01:14:26.135
And I’m like, that is not appropriate sex therapy, right?
01:14:26.175 –> 01:14:37.223
And so we really, that’s a whole nother area is finding somebody who is going to take a sex positive, sex affirming and sex educated approach to your sexual healing.
01:14:38.629 –> 01:14:42.010
Well, thank you so much, Natasha, wonderful resources, great points.
01:14:42.610 –> 01:14:56.015
And for those who want to learn more about integrating religion, and an understanding of the impact on clients and how to better assess for those dynamics, and be more culturally aware, right?
01:14:56.515 –> 01:15:00.496
You have a great resource there you put together learning religion therapy.com.
01:15:00.936 –> 01:15:01.096
Right?
01:15:01.677 –> 01:15:05.798
Yes, that, for those who want to learn more about the other work you’re doing
01:15:06.298 –> 01:15:32.211
uh you have a wonderful practice right going on uh symmetry solutions correct yes yes these are all providers who are trained under me on all these issues we offer groups on on religious trauma and reclaiming female sexuality addressing male sexual shame for those who’ve been through these addiction programs and need to heal from that so we offer a lot of these services mixed orientation
01:15:32.853 –> 01:15:33.734
marriage support.
01:15:34.594 –> 01:15:37.256
In fact, I’m starting a religious trauma group now in January.
01:15:37.276 –> 01:15:46.363
And I even invite therapists who have gone through their own transitions to attend and then they can learn kind of my tools and use them with their clients.
01:15:46.403 –> 01:15:48.785
So yeah, feel free to join me.
01:15:49.065 –> 01:15:50.386
Are your groups remote?
01:15:51.427 –> 01:15:52.328
They’re all remote.
01:15:53.055 –> 01:15:54.736
Yeah, so you can join me from anywhere.
01:15:54.756 –> 01:15:56.376
And they’re educational support groups.
01:15:56.396 –> 01:15:58.597
They’re not like classic therapy groups.
01:15:58.657 –> 01:16:04.658
So we can meet across state lines and just offer a lot of education and resources that way.
01:16:05.779 –> 01:16:07.079
Thank you so much, Natasha.
01:16:07.339 –> 01:16:11.020
And something we have failed to mention as far as you have your own podcast, right?
01:16:11.468 –> 01:16:12.549
Yes, I do.
01:16:12.569 –> 01:16:15.753
If you’re okay with that, I’ll share this one on there.
01:16:16.234 –> 01:16:16.755
Please do.
01:16:16.835 –> 01:16:17.716
Yes, please.
01:16:17.996 –> 01:16:22.141
By all means, I’ll send you the audio and files and everything and spread the wisdom.
01:16:23.904 –> 01:16:30.272
You’re always welcome back on, Natasha, if you want to let us know how things are coming along, if you want to let us pick your brain a little bit more.
01:16:30.932 –> 01:16:40.078
on some more talk around sexual trauma or mixed faiths and relationships, marriages, and how we can navigate those dynamics.
01:16:40.138 –> 01:16:44.541
And anyone listening and watching, let us know if you want Natasha back on for some more questions.
01:16:44.621 –> 01:16:50.225
And I know Monday mornings are a little hectic for you all to join us, but hey, it’s when I have time.
01:16:50.325 –> 01:16:51.386
So that’s how we roll.
01:16:51.406 –> 01:16:55.989
Yeah, no, I love to, like I say here, I love to talk about sex, religion, and everything in between.
01:16:56.029 –> 01:16:57.129
And I could talk for hours.
01:16:57.150 –> 01:16:58.991
So anytime you want me back on, just let me know.
01:17:00.310 –> 01:17:25.073
sounds good via facebook we’ll link up to all your socials of course in the show notes and yeah make sure you’re easy to find okay okay all right before we call it does anyone who’s watching have any quick rapid fire questions otherwise we’ll have to save it for another day going once going twice
01:17:26.584 –> 01:17:28.226
All right, we’ll save it for another time.
01:17:28.586 –> 01:17:29.407
Well, thank you, Natasha.
01:17:29.427 –> 01:17:30.608
I appreciate you being on.
01:17:31.369 –> 01:17:34.251
I will let you know when everything’s posted and ready to go.
01:17:34.672 –> 01:17:35.152
Perfect.
01:17:35.312 –> 01:17:36.153
Thank you so much.
01:17:36.233 –> 01:17:37.735
It was lovely to meet you, Patrick.
01:17:37.755 –> 01:17:38.275
Likewise.
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