What is Spiritual Abuse? — Growing Awareness in Psychedelic Medicine and Religious Movements
--
For several months now, I’ve been collaborating with igotout.org. Igotout is a website and hashtag movement for survivors of high control groups. Their mission is based on the premise that telling stories of coercion and abuse has healing potential for individuals coming out of cult-like environments. Igotout provides an opportunity for fellow survivors to publish their stories (by way of their social media feed), and to connect with and support fellow survivors.
In January, Igotout’s topic of the month was spiritual abuse. They define spiritual abuse this way: “attempting to exert power or control over somebody using religion, faith or beliefs” (WebMD, 2020).
If you are a fellow survivor, and you haven’t already, go connect with I got out online to send them your story. They will publish your story on their Instagram page and you will find some good resources on their website from leading experts in the field.
A Conversation with Kayla Felten (MS, LICSW)
To help me understand a bit more about spiritual abuse from the perspective of counseling psychology, I sought out the insights of licensed independent clinical social worker (LICSW), Kayla Felton. Kayla has her master’s in social work (MSW), and specializes in religious trauma and spiritual abuse. Kayla also focuses on psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy (PAP) “to support those in the process. of reclaiming inner peace, relational harmony, autonomy, pleasure, and identity”.
Below are the highlights from the conversation from Episode 6 of my podcast, Provisional Aspirations.
How would you define spiritual abuse?
“Well, a big focus of my work is really building language together with people. Spiritual abuse is something that I’m sure different people hear and have different visualizations and expressions of what that probably looks like, feels like and sounds like.
“A couple of years back, when I first started holding some underground space for spiritual abuse survivors to gather, I co-created this definition with survivors to make sure that everyone in the room (all being primed in very different contexts and cultures and communities and relationships) felt represented by this definition. Hence it’s a little wordy:
“Spiritual abuse is the conscious or unconscious use of power to direct control or manipulate another’s body, thoughts, emotions, actions, capacity for choice, freedom, or autonomy of self. This can happen within a spiritual or religious context. And I would add that it can actually happen within any relationship where there is a power dynamic (which is arguably every relationship; even with strangers were in a power dynamic).”
How did you get started in this work? What influenced you to become an advocate for spiritual abuse survivors?
“Well, for quite some time already, my focus has been religious trauma. A few years back, I was asked to hold that space for spiritual abuse survivors who were being harmed in plant medicine and Yogi contexts which was really important in helping me to expand my perspective. Spiritual abuse is by no means limited to religious cultures and communities. It can happen in many cultures, many communities, many relationships.
“I started holding that space and now I currently work as a psychedelic therapist. So, it’s been a really beautiful invitation to integrate my different passions, my different experiences in advocating for folks to have autonomous spiritual activation, autonomous healing, and within a therapeutic container during a psychedelic intervention.”
We were chatting earlier about how power dynamics between individuals at an interpersonal level run along different dimensions within every interaction. What can you say about how spiritual abuse shows up in both religious contexts and non-religious contexts?
“Well, I think a big piece of the definition is that this can be conscious or unconscious. And that’s why I think it’s so insidious, so confusing, and bewildering for survivors. Often it may be weeks, months, years, a lifetime, (and it might never happen) that people actualized and recognize: ‘Wow, I was being exploited or manipulated or influenced beyond my consent for what I was doing with my body, my money, my relationships, my spirituality, etc.‘
“And so I think that the way that this often shows up is that people are feeling pressure. They’re feeling an obligation to another human being for how they’re showing up in their existence — basically like allegiance to another person. Sometimes that’s asked for, sometimes it’s expected. I think we can see that in a lot of hierarchical communities, often religious communities. There’s the leader; that is the pastor or the clergy. And this is the person who holds the authority over another person’s life.
“And it does get, I think, a little bit trickier to sift through and recognize when we’re not even talking about formal cultures, communities, and hierarchical power structures, but when we’re talking about a friend or someone that doesn’t have the same title of authority, but they still hold this presence of power in a person’s life. A lot of that can happen unconsciously on one or all parties. So that the person who has manipulated or influenced may not even be aware that that’s what happened.
“There’s a nuance here that we’re holding. I hold a lot of nuance space for survivors, honoring that what happened to you happened to you whether or not someone ‘meant to hurt you’ or not (I put that in quotations because it doesn’t change a damn thing about the consequences that you are living out in your life).”
What are some common emotions and sensations that survivors may navigate as a result of spiritual abuse?
“I find that it is really difficult to trust people. People who have survived long-term exposure to an abusive relationship or a toxic narrative (aka indoctrination) are navigating what’s called CPTSD, complex post-traumatic stress.
“I just want to geek out a little bit about CPTSD because it’s been really supportive and my clients kind of conceptualize. We’re not here to pathologize their experience. But complex trauma is something that we experience when we’ve had long-term exposure to something. It’s not just like a singular event — for example, that I was in a bad car accident and I have trauma from that day. It’s well: I grew up believing that I was inherently wicked. That’s a long-term exposure to kind of a fucked up thought that’s gonna have some later consequences across the lifetime.
“And so for a lot of survivors of spiritual abuse, we’re talking about severe complex trauma if they’ve had a long term exposure to this abusive dynamic where they received so many narratives about their value, about the validity of their feelings, the validity of their perception of their own lived experience, and the ownership over their own narrative.
“For a lot of folks that I hold space for, it’s really hard to trust people and it’s very common to get triggered in relational contexts. If your abuse or your indoctrination occurred in a relational context. I find that sometimes for survivors of abuse, it’s really hard to make attachments. It’s really hard to build trust, and it’s really hard to feel secure in a relationship moving forward.”
How about learning how to identify what that spiritual abuse feels like in real-time. Is that part of what you do or is that something that clients learn on their own?
“I do believe that ‘the body keeps the score’ (Van der Kolk, 2014) of trauma and grief. And I also believe that the narratives that we receive that we internalize, they’re sitting, you know, in our somatics and our somatic expressions. So I try to bring awareness to where might you be holding this. It might have been happening physiologically — you might be holding it literally in your body somewhere. The way our triggers show up provides some insight as to where we have stored it.
“I get very triggered when I’m in a conversation with a man who raises his voice. He may not be yelling at me. He may not even be coming from an aggressive place. It’s just for me, that’s where my body has kept a score of patriarchy trauma. My nervous system gets really activated. I feel like it’s very hard for me to tune into a sense of safety around men, sometimes even just men who have really loud voices. It’s not that this person is doing anything wrong. It’s that it’s hard for me to remain regulated in my body. But that gives me so much guidance, so much insight, as to where my trauma deserves to be honored and held and processed and acknowledged, so that I can commune with my inner child, with my nervous system, and with my inner healing intelligence.
“When I am feeling activated I can say, ‘I know you’re here to keep me safe’. I know I’m not going to gaslight the reasons why I’m feeling activated. I’m not being judgmental. I’m not being angry. I’m being activated. So then I can take a look around and see if I’m safe. And I’m also going to select my proximity and make sure that I always have an exit strategy. That’s just my personal boundary. You know, I don’t go places where I don’t have a way to get out.”
Taking Inventory of Power in Spiritual Relationships
What are some questions one might ask themselves to take inventory of their sense of safety in relation to spiritual leaders, or emotional holders?
“I actually created with my colleague Sophia a little tool which you can find on the Reclamation Collective social media. It’s called a Spiritual Power Inventory. And I encourage survivors to go through this. This is part of our spiritual abuse support group discussion-based curriculum. Also when I do spiritual power inventory work for spiritual and faith leaders, this is the tool that I come back to, which is asking essentially five questions:
1. Who do you trust?
“If any of those individuals were to interact with you in a way that felt violating, manipulative, or abusive, would there be a way to get out of that relationship? Are any of your basic needs intertwined with your proximity to this person or to this community?
“We can think of a lot of cultures, communities, communes, cults where your basic needs, your access to housing, your access to employment, your access to your entire social-emotional network (if you were born and raised within a community that you’re still a part of). You might actually find that you can’t really get out of that relationship and still have access to your basic needs. So in that sense, you’re stuck.
2. Is there a system of accountability in place to report hypothetical abuse of trust or power in the relationship?
“This is a piece to where it doesn’t mean that it’s wrong that there are not systems of accountability or systems of policing in all realms. But I do think that we have to ask: ‘Is there anyone I can report this person to? Should they harm me?’ For example, in the therapeutic relationship, assuming that you’re meeting with a licensed professional, they should have a licensing board that they are held accountable to. So, if someone in that clinical role, in that therapeutic role, were to sexually assault or harass or try to create an unprofessional relationship outside of that therapeutic container, it could be reported to the board saying this person should not have unchecked access to vulnerable people.
“That’s less honored in religious cultures; there’s not really a system of accountability. And there are some that have their own kind of policing board or accountability board. And unfortunately, I’ve held space for a number of survivors who were further silenced and publicly shamed and shunned from the community when they did come forward and say ‘this person has abused me’ and then they had to speak to that person in front of a whole bunch of old white men. And I’m talking about, oftentimes, young girls, teenagers, 15 and under, having to go and report their abuse.
“So certainly, even if there is a ‘system of accountability (I’m putting that in quotes) is certainly not across the board. These are not connected communication systems of accountability. So there’s really no way to say when someone’s coming from a religious community that there’s really any system of accountability in place should they harm in their power, because there’s also not a clear code of ethics. We don’t always know what to expect of a spiritual or faith leader. Where does their supportive role begin and end?”
3. Do you have the opportunity or safety to set boundaries with this person?
“If you don’t feel safe, you don’t feel confident to set boundaries with someone, that’s for you to take inventory of. Is this a person that I really want to be vulnerable with? Do I really want to be investing a lot of emotional labor into this relationship if I don’t even feel safe to set boundaries with this person?
“Again, it may not be that this person who said ‘you can’t set boundaries with me’, but let’s honor that power dynamic that if it’s hard for you to set boundaries with men, for example, I might have to take consideration of whether or not I need to be in therapeutic care by a man. If it’s hard for me to set boundaries, that doesn’t mean that it’s wrong for that person to be holding that space or that they’re not receptive to hearing the boundary. But that’s where I need to consider my sense of safety, my sense of confidence, my skills in self-advocacy, and show up to a safe relationship with someone with a power dynamic over me.
4. Has this person communicated where their supportive role begins and ends?”
Spiritual Abuse in Psychedelic Healing
I want to get a little bit into psychedelics because they are a very useful tool, I think, for spiritual abuse. Are you concerned at all about the potential for spiritual abuse in the context of psychedelics? How does that manifest itself how do we protect ourselves from it?
“I’m deeply concerned about what we already know has been abuse in therapeutic contexts This last year I’ve been following it quite a bit. There’s been a few articles published, specifically by survivors who have been harmed in plant medicine and psychedelic therapeutic spaces.
“We already know that that is kind of a foundation that brings us into 2021–2022, where we’re able to do psychedelic intervention in clinical spaces. I really think that this is a different type of therapeutic container than most therapeutic relationships. And so I do feel a sense of urgency to really show up in conversations with psychedelic therapists and psychedelic advocates in general, to really raise consciousness on the power, the privilege, the potential for harm if it’s not really clear where your supportive role begins and ends.
“For some of these medicines, people are really going into other dimensions it’s interdimensional; an interdimensional kind of exploration and expansion of consciousness. What a very vulnerable, and by default intimate, journey we’re taking with clients when we’re going into the unknown. When I go into the treatment room with my clients, I’m not actively in relationship with that medicine (my client is) but we are still both entering the unknown. I have no idea what’s going to come to visualization, to sensation, for my client, but I just have to be reliable to hold that space — to hold the co-created therapeutic container to, hopefully, help my clients remain secure and grounded. And we can handle anything that comes up, anything that comes to consciousness, anything that comes to awareness. We’re going to hold it. We’re going to honor it. We’re going to explore it together.
“The practitioner really needs to be well-versed in spiritual abuse and the ethical boundaries. So that when they enter in, they can be supportive. A lot of that can be agreed upon ahead of time with psychedelics.
And informed consent; having really clear informed consent. This is what I can put on the table if you’re wanting some supportive touch. If you’re wanting me to hold your hand. If you’re wanting me to do some somatic touch.
“I do offer my clients some somatic touch throughout their ketamine transcendence, but I’m very clear that I will touch you from your shoulders down to your fingers and I get a verbal consent the day of in addition to one session prior while we still exist, and we both exist in this dimension of reality. And I’ll ask you again, as you’re posturing to receive medicine. And at any point throughout your transcendence, if something doesn’t feel right just say ‘stop’ and I will stop. It’s not personal. I won’t be upset. I don’t approach medicine as if I have the best way to do this. I try to avoid inviting fundamentalism into my relationship with medicine and into my therapeutic relationships as well.
Tell us a little bit about you know how people can get in touch with you and connect with Reclamation Collective and what kind of services you offer.
“My clinical work with psychedelic medicine is happening at the Institute for Integrative Therapies in St. Paul. We are a psychedelic therapy and advocacy institute. We are about a year and a half old, so we’re just kind of launching into reality.
And then with Reclamation Collective, our focus has always been on non-clinical interventions. So again, that’s our strategy to try to make everything that we offer at the Reclamation Collective accessible to people across state and country lines. Also, we’re really seeking to not invite pathologization into our relationships with survivors. I’m not saying that’s automatically wrong or problematic. But I do think that there are some people who would prefer a non-clinical intervention for their trauma, extraction, resolution, and recovery.
In March, we are going to be offering our season of support groups for survivors. We have deconstruction support groups. We have support groups for spiritual abuse survivors. But we also are going to be offering integration circles, which are going to be run the same way that we run support groups, in terms of timeline (10 weeks, two hours each) but the integration circles are going to be facilitated specifically by psychedelic therapists. And it’s going to be a 10-week journey of curating relationship to medicine, really talking about what it means to set up your own ‘set’ and ‘setting’ and to approach your relationship with the medicine with intentionality, and obviously, with safety in mind.
This is going to be specifically for trauma survivors. It’s not going to be specific to religious trauma or spiritual abuse survivors, but these are going to be opportunities for trauma survivors to consult with peers and build some community around what could be a relationship with medicine. We’re hopeful that this will also help to support folks across the country who maybe won’t have access to a psychedelic therapy clinic. But perhaps they have access to a ketamine infusion clinic or other means of access that people have used across time (if they have access in the underground or if they have access to psilocybin or medicines that aren’t yet being used in clinical spaces). We want to honor that these folks also deserve to have a safe space to process and be intentional about their relationship to medicine.
Thanks so much.
How to Connect
Thanks again, Kayla, for agreeing to be on the show.
If you’d like to connect with Kayla you can find all of her information on the Reclamation Collective website and on Instagram.
If you are interested in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy in your healing journey, visit the Institute for Integrative Therapies website.
References:
Van der Kolk, B. A. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma.
WebMD Editorial Contributors (2020) Signs of Spiritual Abuse. Reviewed By Dan Brennan, MD. Retrieved from: https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/signs-spiritual-abuse
