This is a 4-hour self-paced CEU course that helps professionals recognize, unpack, and treat the psychological and spiritual harm
Healing Spiritual Abuse and Religious Addiction is a 4-CEU, self-paced professional training course inspired by When God Becomes a Drug and designed for counselors, social workers, addiction professionals, and helping practitioners who work with clients harmed by spiritually abusive or coercive religious environments.
This course explores how spiritual abuse mirrors addiction dynamics—using fear, shame, control, and distorted theology to create emotional dependency, suppress autonomy, and fracture identity. Participants will learn how religious systems can unintentionally (or intentionally) replace healthy attachment, emotional regulation, and self-trust with compliance, guilt, and spiritualized trauma responses.
Across eight thoughtfully sequenced lessons, learners examine the roots and impacts of spiritual abuse, including the roles that make individuals especially vulnerable, the misuse of concepts like sin and obedience, and the ways God or religion can become an emotional “drug” used to numb pain rather than heal it. The course integrates trauma-informed care, reparenting frameworks, attachment theory, and recovery-oriented spirituality to help professionals understand both the injury and the path forward.
Special attention is given to sensitive and often overlooked topics such as sexual abuse within religious contexts, distorted images of God (including maternal imagery and attachment wounds), and the somatic and emotional locations where spiritual trauma is held. Participants are guided toward recognizing healthy versus harmful spirituality and are introduced to treatment considerations and clinical interventions for clients recovering from spiritual abuse and religious addiction.
By the end of this course, participants will be able to:
Identify signs and dynamics of spiritual abuse and religious addiction
Understand how shame, fear, and control are used to maintain spiritual dependency
Recognize vulnerable roles and attachment patterns shaped by religious trauma
Support clients in reclaiming autonomy, emotional safety, and healthy spirituality
Apply trauma-informed and recovery-oriented treatment approaches in clinical practice
This course is self-paced and hosted on Coursify.me, allowing professionals to engage with the material thoughtfully and reflectively while earning 4 Continuing Education Units (CEUs). It is ideal for clinicians working with faith-impacted clients, justice-involved populations, individuals in recovery, and anyone seeking deeper clinical insight into the intersection of spirituality, trauma, and addiction.