‘Holy Hurt’ is Hillary McBride’s field guide to the shattering impact of spiritual trauma

(RNS) — Trauma is a lot like having a shard of glass in your hand, explains clinical psychologist Hillary McBride.

After time, it’s often invisible to the eye. The wound is obscured, the initial injury only noticeable by the ways we adapt to avoid pain — holding a utensil differently, typing with one fewer finger.

Some traumas can be linked a single incident — or single sliver of glass — but in the case of spiritual trauma, it’s like having a handful of glass pieces, says McBride, and almost no memory of how they got there.

“Everyone around is saying, ‘It’s good, it’s right,’” said McBride. “’It’s supposed to hurt.’”

While spiritual trauma has always existed, it’s a field that’s long been understudied, argues McBride, who has become known for her writing on embodiment, including her 2021 book “The Wisdom of Your Body.” It can be difficult to observe, in part because it can be the result of harmful messaging and interactions over time that are framed as good, even salvific. But, McBride writes, no matter how much we cover up our injuries, our bodies know the truth.

McBride’s latest book, “Holy Hurt: Understanding Spiritual Trauma and the Process of Healing,” is a field guide of sorts. Out from Brazos Press on April 15, it uses research, anecdotes and interviews with other experts to help readers better understand what spiritual trauma is, how to identify it and what healing can look like. RNS spoke with McBride about the warning signs and patterns of spiritual trauma and how to reckon with it. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What are some red flags that might help us identify communities or individuals that perpetuate spiritual trauma?

There could be two people who are in the same context, and for one it’s spiritually traumatic, and for the other it’s not. That’s the case with any trauma. So we don’t want to suggest these factors will guarantee religious trauma, or if these factors aren’t present, that there couldn’t be trauma.

But often in environments that are spiritually abusive, people aren’t allowed to pay attention to what’s happening inside of them. There is no contact with the inner world that says I can trust myself, and I can trust my fear, and my fear is telling me this is unsafe, or I’m being taken advantage of. Maybe that goes so far as people being told they’re bad to the core. That can lead to people being manipulated or taken advantage of. Of course, when there is someone who’s authoritarian and is demanding that they get to be the moral arbiter of what goes on for people’s lives, that is more likely to create experiences of spiritual trauma.

And then there’s coercion. This can happen when people are required to engage in certain systemic behaviors or practices that are unhealthy in some way, but that are seen as contingent on their belonging or their goodness. A culture of silence is another factor, when people can’t be confronted for causing harm. And then I think purity culture would be considered a form of sexual trauma. Creating fear-based narratives or depriving people of appropriate sexual education is a form of trauma that ruptures a person’s relationship with their sexuality or their body.

Spiritual trauma doesn’t always take place in a religious context. Where else can it occur?

Spiritual trauma can happen when anyone overlays a spiritual meaning making process to the trauma that happened, or when someone does that for them. So if there’s an abuse experience and someone says, well, God made that happen, and they implicate God in the trauma, that can be spiritual trauma. But at the core, I don’t think there is any trauma that isn’t spiritual trauma. I think all forms of trauma rupture our sense of safety in our bodies, and our connection to the world, ourselves and God. So if something is falling into the category of trauma, whether it’s a car accident or an earthquake or childhood sexual abuse, I believe all of those things fragment, rupture or impact our spirituality in some way.

Often, folks who’ve experienced spiritual trauma can find themselves in contexts that perpetuate the same harms. Why is this the case, and how can folks avoid going back to systems that harm them?

We are wired to develop so that whatever is happening around us starts to feel normal. That’s even more the case when we’re also getting something we need, like the feeling of belonging, or being cared for, or not having to worry about the threat of hell. And then when we leave that context, that deeply encoded programming stays with us. So it’s not unusual for people to find themselves in abusive systems even after they leave an abusive church system. Maybe it’s an abusive marriage, or an organization where there are similar kinds of narcissistic leadership styles. It can be really important to get a lot of space from that system or way of thinking, and start to get a little bit of information and education about how unhealthy systems work. Understanding how we were able to stay in that system so long, what it was doing for us, is a part of being able to have compassion and to begin to grow around some of those ways we’ve adapted.

What advice do you have for folks who are reckoning with their own complicity in spiritual trauma?

It may seem paradoxical, especially if we’ve come from systems where we think in black and white, but I think when we are connected to the core of the goodness of who we are, then we are able to face the things we did that hurt other people and take responsibility. We need to feel connected to a source of ultimate love that sees and knows and treasures us as we are, which helps us then be brave enough to look at OK, what do I do? What is the impact on people, and how do I begin to make repair? We also need to be able to have some emotional regulation skills, because when we start looking at what we did that might have hurt other people, being able to tolerate the distress of seeing other people’s pain without blaming them or without shutting down is actually the only way forward in making it right.

When it comes to spiritual trauma, what are some misconceptions about healing?

We think healing has to look one particular way. We want people to either completely run away from churches or systems that hurt them, or stay connected to their faith. I think people being able to autonomously dictate what their healing journey looks like is an important part of resolving the wound. Now, I don’t think we can heal totally on our own, so usually we need relational support. But I really do think people need to be able to determine what it looks like for them, and we need opportunities to be in a cyclical process with our healing, instead of it being defined as a single event or linear. There needs to be room for us to step away and come back and heal and then let it hurt again and do another round of turning toward the injury. One of the toxic ideas about healing we have in many spiritual contexts is that it’s only real if it’s finite.