#Marlene Winell

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

"The implication is that you must not relax. You should live in fear about being right with God at all times. Especially for a small child, this can be terrifying."

-- Marlene Winell, "Leaving the Fold"

[gramarobin]

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wait for the last line, so good

[iskra8]

Have you been harmed by toxic religion? Learn how to recover and reclaim your life.

Psychologist Marlene Winell is uniquely qualified to address the subject of this book. In addition to her personal experience with leaving fundamentalist religion, she has worked with clients recovering from religion for 28 years. She is known for coining the term Religious Trauma Syndrome.

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

Marlene Winell - Leaving The Fold, Religious Trauma, and Emotional Recovery

Psychologist, educator, and Leaving The Fold author, Marlene Winell, talks with Lola & Meagan about how she came to study the negative impacts of religion, how some basic concepts of Christianity can be harmful, why authoritarian structures of religion can sometimes lead to trauma, how we can rationally understand something but emotionally reject it, the spectrum of meaning, and what that looks like after leaving a religion.

[cavorta]

A pagan novella

January 6, 2024

I wish you a good new year with many blessings. Over the past few years, I have published some pagan and witchcraft non-fiction. Currently, I am working on a novella about a young queer woman who leaves a (fictional) conservative Christian cult. She starts a new life and eventually becomes a pagan and more specifically, a Lokean. The story is set in Germany. I have no idea if anyone wants to read that because the genre is neither romance nor a mystery or another typical genre. But anyway, I want to write it. My plan is to selfpublish it in German and English. I also use this as a sort of devotional work for Loki. Devotion for pagan deities can take so many forms, doesn't it? I have no personal experience with leaving a cult or Christianity, but I have researched cults for quite a bit now and heard/read accounts by people who left one and how they recovered from their experiences. For further research, I am also reading “Changing Paths” by Yvonne Aburrow at the moment and I also want to read “Leaving the Fold: A Guide for Former Fundamentalists and Others Leaving Their Religion” by Marlene Winell, Ph.D. I guess this will be quite a journey to write, but as someone said in the Facebook group “The Lokean Collective” when I posted about this novella, “This is a story that needs to be told. Do it!!” And so be it.😊

[gxlden-angels]

"The notion of personal responsibility in fundamentalism is a curious one. You are responsible for your sins, but you cannot take credit for the good things that you do. Any good that you do must be attributed to God working through you. Yet you must try to be Christ-like. When you fail, it is your fault for not 'letting the power of God work in you.' This is an effective double bind of responsibility without ability."

- Marlene Winell, Ph.D, Leaving the Fold (1993)

[gary232]

Religious trauma syndrome (RTS) is recognized in psychology[citation needed] and psychotherapy[citation needed] as a set of symptoms, ranging in severity, experienced by those who have participated in or left behind authoritarian, dogmatic, and controlling religious groups and belief systems.[1] Symptoms include cognitive, affective, functional, and social/cultural issues as well as developmental delays.[2]

RTS occurs in response to two-fold trauma: first the prolonged abuse of indoctrination from a controlling religious community, and secondly the act of leaving the controlling religious community.[2] RTS has developed as its own heuristic collection of symptoms informed by psychological theories of trauma originating in PTSD, C-PTSD and betrayal trauma theory, taking relational and social context into account when approaching further research and treatment.

The term "religious trauma syndrome" was coined in 2011 by psychologist Marlene Winell in an article for the British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies, though the phenomenon was recognized long before that. The term has circulated among psychotherapists, former fundamentalists, and others recovering from religious indoctrination.[1][3] Winell explains the need for a label and the benefits of naming the symptoms encompassed by RTS as similar to naming anorexia as a disorder: the label can lessen shame and isolation for survivors while promoting diagnosis, treatment, and training for professionals who work with those suffering from the condition.[4] Survivors report relief when they find out that RTS is "real.

[cruel-style]

thoughts on your fave book recs, and fave self care!

send some asks that are like “thoughts on ______”

I actually don’t read that much, but I do really enjoy it so here are a few favs.

The Giver: Lois Lowry

The Uglies (series): Scott Westerfield

A Million Junes: Emily Henry

Any book at all by Brené brown

And my current read is called Leaving The Fold by Marlene Winell

Best ways for me to practice self care are showering and moisturizing, and I love to take care of my curls. I also take care of myself by taking care of Rory, like taking her on walks, eating when she eats, that kind of thing.

[isaiahbie]

Is Christianity Intellectual Suicide?

Some refuse to give Christianity the time of day because they deem it anti-intellectual—a religion that values ignorance and credulity far above critical intelligence. In his satirical book The Devil’s Dictionary (1911), Ambrose Bierce defined faith as “Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.” In a book on how to leave one’s religion behind, Marlene Winell writes of a young man named Sandy who was in her “religious recovery support group,” who lost his faith in college through an encounter with an anti-intellectual pastor. The young man was experiencing doubts as a result of what he was exposed to in college. Instead of addressing these questions head-on, the pastor kept changing the subject. One day, when pressed by the young man, the pastor replied, “Sandy, it’s about time we call this what it is—sin.” The young man left the church and Christianity, being unwilling to follow “a religion that made thinking a sin.”¹

No one should be willing to follow a religion that decapitates critical thinking. Anti-intellectualism has quite a grip in many aspects of our culture, not only in the Christian church. The reasons for the irrational faith shown in some aspects of contemporary Christianity are numerous and will not concern us here except to say that none of the reasons flow from the Bible itself or from the best and truest elements of the Christian tradition. While some have pitted faith against reason, the Bible does not endorse blind leaps of faith in the dark but rather speaks of the “knowledge of God” gained through various rational means. Instead of a “leap of faith,” it commends a well-informed and volitional “step of faith.”

Jesus said the greatest commandment is to love God with all of one’s being, including the mind (Matthew 22:37). Jesus’ own ministry led Him into intellectual debates with the best thinkers of His day, none of whom bested Him in argument. We find Jesus using various argumentative strategies, such as reductio ad absurdum, a fortiori, modus ponens and appeals to evidence.² He further reasoned from a well-developed theistic worldview. The apostle Paul reasoned with the philosophers on Mars Hill (Acts 17:16-31), and the apostle Peter challenged his readers to “give an answer” for their hope in Christ (1 Peter 3:15-16).

When Paul refers to the wisdom of God as foolish to unbelievers in 1 Corinthians 1-2, he is not derogating the intellect per se. He is rather stressing that God’s initiation through divine revelation is required for a saving knowledge of Christ, and that human pride and arrogance deem it unreasonable to submit humbly to this necessity. God’s revelation is not unreasonable, yet the unaided human mind could not produce it on its own. Similarly, Paul warns his readers not to be taken captive by “hollow and deceptive philosophy,” which is merely human and divorced from God’s revelation (Colossians 2:8). This is not a condemnation of all philosophy, only false philosophy.³ Paul himself reasons carefully throughout his many intellectual encounters in the book of Acts and in his many New Testament letters. We do not lose our intelligence by being filled with the Holy Spirit.

Not long ago Christian apologists faced an uphill battle against well-entrenched philosophies of unbelief. Natural theology was deemed long dead, having been slain by the swords of Hume and Kant. Arguments for God’s existence were at best philosophical museum pieces revealing the errors of unenlightened intellectuals. Higher critics had reduced the Gospels to ragtag collections of scattered facts, idiosyncratic theologizing and existentially gripping myths. Philosophers and apologists were doing well to argue for the intelligibility of religious language (considered nonsense by logical positivists), let alone its rationality or truth. Evangelical apologetics—when pursued at all—was typically practiced outside the academy and often lacked intellectual power (although this could not be said of twentieth-century evangelical stalwarts such as J. Gresham Machen, Gordon Clark, Bernard Ramm, Edward John Carnell or Carl Henry).⁴

But seismic shocks in the philosophy of religion have realigned the intellectual world of unbelief in the past three decades, opening up fissures and toppling edifices. Atheist philosopher Quentin Smith wrote in the skeptical philosophical journal Philo that the philosophy departments of the academy have been “desecularized” since the late 1960s, largely due to the pathbreaking work of Alvin Plantinga’s writings. Given the renaissance in Christian philosophy during the past few decades, atheistic philosophers can no longer assume that their naturalism is justified. Smith even allows that “the justification of most contemporary naturalist views is defeated by contemporary theist arguments.”⁵ Philosophia Christi, the journal of the Evangelical Philosophical Society, has the largest subscription base of any philosophy of religion journal and features a roster of stellar contributors. In two important books, Philosophers Who Believe and God and the Philosophers, many leading philosophers wrote of how their Christian beliefs inform their philosophical pursuits.⁶

We find then that Christianity should encourage a robust life of the mind and that many philosophers today are owning and defending Christianity philosophically. There is therefore no reason to refuse to consider Christianity on the (false) basis that it demands intellectual suicide.

Notes:

¹ Marlene Winell, Leaving the Fold: A Guide for Former Fundamentalists and Others Leaving Their Religion (Oakland, Calif.: New Harbinger, 1993), p. 80. ² For more on this, see Douglas Groothuis, “Jesus’ Use of Argument,” in On Jesus (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 2003); and James W. Sire, “Jesus the Reasoner,” in Habits of the Mind (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2000). ³ For more on these passages, see J. P. Moreland, Love Your God with All Your Mind (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1997), pp. 58-59; and John Piper, Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 2010), chaps. 10-11. ⁴ For essays on these important thinkers see Walter A. Elwell, Handbook of Evangelical Theologians (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993). Many of the theologians were also philosophers. ⁵ Quentin Smith, “The Meta-Philosophy of Naturalism,” Philo 4, no. 2 ( 2001). ⁶ Kelly James Clark, ed., Philosophers Who Believe (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1994); Thomas Morris, ed., God and the Philosophers (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995).

[couponspiner]

Religious trauma syndrome

Religious trauma syndrome movie#

A culture is aware of how myths are made.People feel they deserve healing instead of punishment.Children are put in fear of demons and told that these demons have supernatural powers. Wrongdoing accumulates without a means for forgiveness, atonement or purification.Guilt is projected outward onto demons instead of healed inside.Believers pay attention to that myth and give it value.People feel they deserve punishment rather than healing.a society with fear-based beliefs in unworthiness, shame and sin: In his book Life After Death: The Burden of Proof, Deepak Chopra describes the difference between a society that is empowered by its spirituality vs. severe corporal punishment, isolation) that create the damage. hellfire, original sin) and practices (e.g. More often it is an accumulation of exposure to teachings (e.g.

Religious trauma syndrome movie#

Religious harm or Toxic Religious Experience is rarely a single event, although many sufferers may focus on singular horrifying events such as watching a movie about the End Times. This is a huge, multidimensional task, since religion can seem to define all of reality. Related to all of these issues is the fact that authoritarian religions teach two basic and powerfully toxic messages: “You are not okay” and “You are not safe.” Recovery from religious harm involves healing from these deep assumptions, often indoctrinated from birth, and reconstructing a whole new worldview. Like other trauma, religious trauma can produce anxiety in the form of emotional flashbacks, which can look like panic attacks, among other responses. Many people leaving religion have had enough Toxic Religious Experience (TRE) to produce symptoms of complex PTSD, which is “trauma” in the more clinical sense. Relational: Problems with family and friends due to religion, loss of social support systemĭevelopmental: delayed areas of human development due to religious isolation and conformity, including critical thinking, decision-making, identity formation, emotional regulation, healthy sexuality, social skills, creativity, self-efficacy, and meaning in life Social: Loss of social network, family rupture, social awkwardness, sexual difficulty, behind schedule on developmental tasksĬultural: Unfamiliarity with secular world “fish out of water” feelings, difficulty belonging, information gaps (e.g. Religious Trauma Syndrome has a very recognizable set of symptoms, a definitive set of causes, and a debilitating cycle of abuse:Ĭognitive: Confusion, poor critical thinking ability, negative beliefs about self-ability & self-worth, black & white thinking, perfectionism, difficulty with decision-makingĮmotional: Depression, anxiety, anger, grief, loneliness, difficulty with pleasure, loss of meaning It can be compared to a combination of PTSD and Complex PTSD (C-PTSD). RTS is a function of both the chronic abuses of harmful religion and the impact of severing one’s connection with one’s faith. They may be going through the shattering of a personally meaningful faith and/or breaking away from a controlling community and lifestyle. Religious Trauma Syndrome (RTS) is the condition experienced by people who are struggling with leaving an authoritarian, dogmatic religion and coping with the damage of indoctrination. Marlene Winnell, in her book, Leaving the Fold, describes Religious Trauma Syndrome as follows: Salon.Com, last modified November 1, 2014.ĭr. Valerie Tarico and Marlene Winell, “The Sad, Twisted Truth about Conservative Christianity’s Effect on the Mind. Psychological mind-control techniques that encourage isolation A threat-based reality (hell, punishment, catastrophic end times). Restricted access to outside sources of information An authoritarian power hierarchy that demands obedience Tarico and Winnell identify these characteristics : Breaking Their Will: Shedding Light on Religious Child Maltreatment. Children raised in this mindset fail to develop critical thinking skills and intellectual autonomy, and when presented with an image of God as a frightening entity, can grow up projecting their fear of God onto the world at large, perceiving everything outside the immediate religious community as dangerous evil and suspicious. She identifies characteristics in religious authoritarian systems that include literal interpretation of scripture as the source of absolute rule, and the threat of punishment for non-conformity. Researcher Janet Heimlich, in her book Breaking Their Will, explores how religion can often function as an authoritarian culture that creates terror among followers.

[revelation29]

What kind of religion is it that you have to scare people into believing?

Dr Marlene Winell

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

“The Christian model of reality has built within its mechanisms for its own survival:

fear and dependence, circular reasoning, threats for leaving, social supports for staying, and obstructions that prevent outside information from reaching insiders, especially children.

Thus, believers not only get hurt, they get stuck.”

-- Marlene Winell & Valerie Tarico

[gramarobin]

[feral-apostate]

i’m reading in leaving the fold by marlene winell how christianity manipulates language by redefining words like freedom, wisdom, and truth. love is redefined as obedience. the only relationships i’ve seen where someone associates love w obedience are toxic ones (paternal, platonic, romantic, etc).

which, y’know, is pretty consistent w christianity considering we’re told to “murder our flesh” and “rely not on our own understanding.”

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

Can Religion Give You PTSD?

https://newrepublic.com/article/161772/can-religion-give-ptsd

ILLUSTRATION BY EVA REDAMONTI

Stephanie Russell-Kraft   March 23, 2021

Can Religion Give You PTSD? Meet the “exvangelicals” seeking therapy for religious trauma.

This is a short extract. Please click on the link above to read the complete article.

...

“This led me to realizing it’s not just a cognitive problem that people experience,” said Peck, now a licensed clinical social worker based in Boise, Idaho. “A lot of the deconstruction journey is a cognitive process. It’s about reading and studying. It’s about beliefs and ideas: Are they true or not true? During that process, we often lose sight of the fact that we’re social mammals living in bodies, and the way that trauma impacts us is not just in our head, it’s in our body as well.”

In recent years, mental health practitioners have begun the work of cataloging and defining religious trauma. Many of them, like Peck and Anderson, grew up in fundamentalist or conservative religious environments.

In 1993, psychologist Marlene Winell published Leaving the Fold, a self-help book for former Christian fundamentalists deciding to forsake their religion. Winell, who refers to herself as a “recovering fundamentalist,” coined the term “religious trauma syndrome” more than a decade ago. It’s “the condition experienced by people who are struggling with leaving an authoritarian, dogmatic religion and coping with the damage of indoctrination,” Winell has written.

...

A major complicating factor in the treatment of religious trauma is the fact that many evangelicals are taught not to listen to or trust their bodies. Trauma lives in the body, and treating it is made all the more difficult when an individual must first regain a sense of their own bodily self.

“Evangelicalism encourages folks to exist primarily in their minds, in a world of thoughts, beliefs, and mental constructs,” said Peck. “Thought control is often viewed as the solution rather than its own source of suffering.”

Ana Sharp Williamson still carries the weight of purity culture with her today. Even though she now believes women can and should enjoy sex, she’s had trouble putting it into practice in her marriage. “I was very sex-positive,” she said, “I was all like, ‘Hey, close the orgasm gap!’ I would preach that to my friends, but it took a long time for my body and brain to actually believe that for myself.” Her therapist pushed Williamson to “explore myself and my needs, what makes me feel fulfilled, what makes me feel safe, what makes me feel motivated.”

This mind-body disconnect is common among ex-evangelical clients, according to Kathryn Keller, a Dallas-based therapist. She told me about a former Southern Baptist client who struggled with this. “I asked them about their intuition, and whether they were ever taught to listen to their gut.” The client looked surprised. “‘What? I don’t listen to myself,’ they said.”

“It’s so confusing, because the body is still giving you signals but you don’t know how to listen to it or to even listen to it,” said Keller.

...

Full article: https://newrepublic.com/article/161772/can-religion-give-ptsd

_____________________________________

Religious Trauma Syndrome – Marlene Winell

Vagus nerve: Sun Myung Moon said the mind and body are in perpetual conflict. That should not be the case.

[cavorta]

Today, I would like to show you two books that I have read for research for my novella „Dreams of Loki“

„Leaving the Fold: A Guide for Former Fundamentalists and Others Leaving Their Religion“ by Marlene Winell Ph. D. (from 2006)

This is specifically about leaving Christianity and not much is said about changing to a different spiritual path but rather leaving spirituality completely. However, the book is really insightful, it offers a lot of advice about how to get rid of „spiritual baggage“ so to speak and is recommendable in my eyes.

„Changing Paths“ by Yvonne Aburrow (from 2023)

This book is basically for anybody who is contemplating to change their spiritual path, be it from Christianity to paganism, from paganism to something else or a different kind of spiritual journey. The book offers some theological theories and general thoughts about what spirituality/religion is and why it can be enrich your life. Other topics include reasons for leaving a specific path, religion and gender, ethics and more. There are exercises included, for instance journal prompts and guided meditations. I think this book is recommendable too.

There is just one point I do not agree with. The author emphasizes more than once that it is very important to find a spiritual community and meet like-minded people in person. Of course this can be beneficial, but on the other hand, there are also solitary witches and pagans who explore their spiritual paths by themselves, without a spiritual group or a coven etc. My novella gets published as a ebook on April 1, 2024 (no joke) in all Amazon shops and can be pre-ordered.

The print version will be available on April 7, 2024, also in all Amazon shops.

Here is the book cover and the blurb:

The young lesbian woman Vera leaves a conservative Christian cult, starting a new life in Hamburg. There she must find a place to live and a job. But Vera has an additional problem: in her dreams, a mysterious person appears who finally reveals to be the Norse deity Loki. Vera mistrusts this deity – is this some kind of demon? In Hamburg, Vera gets to know more queer people and also a Norse pagan …

A novella about spirituality, modern paganism and the struggles and joys of being queer. There are also some witches in the story.