Home / Freethought and Humanism: Atheistic and Theistic (Deism) / Religious Trauma Syndrome: An Overview of Dr. Marlene Winell’s Article in the British Association for Behavioural & Cognitive Psychotherapies


According to Dr. Marlene Winell, religious indoctrination can be very damaging, leaving religion can be traumatic, and can take a long time to recover from it.  The indoctrination can haunt people for years after they left religion.  She calls this Religious Trauma Syndrome or RTS.

Her awareness of this started when she wrote her book, Leaving the Fold: A Guide for Former Fundamentalists, which is not just for Fundamentalists, but for anyone struggling with leaving religion.  Dr. Winell has also spent twenty years counseling people who left religion and struggled with various issues concerning indoctrination.

However, there are barriers to treating RTS.  Some of these issues are:

  • [R]eligious institutions have a vested interest in promoting an uncritical view.
  • [M]ost people with RTS have been taught to fear psychology as something worldly and therefore evil.  The religious view depression, anxiety and other mental illnesses as sins and seen as not being right with God.

At this time, there is no appropriate diagnosis, but Dr. Winell is working hard to get RTS recognized so that more therapists can help those struggling with leaving religion, which can be one of the biggest crises one can face during their lifetime.  She says this is important because more people are leaving traditional religion and they suffer greatly while adjusting to the world outside of church.

So what is RTS?

RTS is the condition experienced by people who are struggling with leaving an authoritarian, dogmatic religion and coping with the damage of indoctrination.  They may be going through the shattering of a personally meaningful faith and/or breaking away from a controlling community and lifestyle. The symptoms compare most easily with PTSD, which results from experiencing or being confronted with death or serious injury and causing feelings of terror, helplessness, or horror.  This can be a single event or chronic abuse of some kind.  With RTS, there is chronic abuse, especially of children, plus the major trauma of leaving the fold.  Like PTSD, the impact is long-lasting, with intrusive thoughts, negative emotional states, impaired social functioning, and other problems.

According to Dr Winell, the trauma is two-fold.  The teachings and practices can be toxic emotionally and mentally, causing lifelong problems for individuals and sometimes compounded by sexual abuse, due to the patriarchal environment.


Leaving is stressful because one trades one world for another, losing the social system and support religion provided.


According to Dr. Winell, RTS has four key dysfunctions.

Key dysfunctions in RTS are:

  • Functional:  Sleep and eating disorders, nightmares, sexual dysfunction, substance abuse, somatisation

The severity depends on many factors, but those most at risk are those raised in religion, shelter from the world, had a sincere emotional involvement in the religion, and from a very controlling religious sect.

Understanding the trauma one suffers after they leave religion is another issue caused by rigid conformity to a controlling patriarch.  Due to authoritarian nature of some religious sects, psychological problems can develop long before a person experiences the trauma of leaving the abusive system.


Religion lays a foundation of fear, generally at a very early age, especially if one is born into religion, generally with the use of damnation and condemnation to hell for anyone who does not believe.  According to Dr. Andy Thompson, this is one way that religion hijacks development stages, such as healthy attachment, which leads us to what Dr. Winell is saying about RTS and according to her, a variation of this fear concerns Rapture theology.

This stunts part of early attachment to others, especially those who raise and supposedly protect a child.  It is can cause, from my understanding, a form of an attachment disorder, in which one fears getting “left behind” or even going to hell and not living in heaven with the rest of their family.  Individuals are taught from a very early age that they must believe or burn for eternity in hell, never seeing their family again.  This is essentially a hijacking of an early developmental stage, which people struggle with after they leave their religion, sometimes for many years afterwards.

Religious parents and other elders also teach children that the real world is a bad place, “ruled by Satan and his minions”.

Finally, believers simply cannot feel safe in the world.  In the fundamentalist worldview, ‘the World’ is a fallen place, dangerously ruled by Satan and his minions until Jesus comes back and God puts everything right.  Meanwhile it’s a battleground for spiritual warfare and children are taught to be very afraid of anything that is not Christian.

Original sin or the teaching that the self is bad is another doctrine that can cause serious trauma after leaving religion.


To think of oneself as good a good person, worthy of love, and intelligent is considered as pride, one of the worst sins in the religious worldview and the Bible even states that pride and boastfulness is a sin.  Everything that one does that is good, while in religion, they credit to God and anything one does that is bad is sin.  Just as the moon must decrease after the Winter Solstice, giving way for the Sun to increase and bring about new life in the spring, so must the person decrease to give way to some fictitious person, called a deity (John 3:30).  The problem is various religious groups literalize the passage so much, that the symbolism for the sun is lost in the literature.

All of this leads us to a cycle of abuse, according to Dr. Winell, with devastating effects after one leaves religion.

A believer can never be good enough and goes through a cycle of sin, guilt, and salvation similar to the cycle of abuse in domestic violence. When they say they have a ‘personal relationship’ with God, they are referring to one of total dominance and submission, and they are convinced that they should be grateful for this kind of ‘love’.  Like an authoritarian husband, this deity is an all-powerful, ruling male whose word is law.  The sincere follower ‘repents’ and ‘rededicates’, which produces a temporary reprieve of anxiety and perhaps a period of positive affect.  This intermittent reinforcement is enough to keep the cycle of abuse in place.   Like a devoted wife, the most sincere believers get damaged the most.

Religious teachings also lead to a stunting of intellectual development, because reason is the enemy of faith.  Not only did Martin Luther teach this idea and even it called it a whore, but also one can find grounds for this in the Bible (Proverbs 3:5-6 and Isaiah 55:9-11).  Those who believe cannot question religious dogma and the church considers critical thinking skills, as well as emotions, sins, which one must suppress.

All of this is a terrible misuse and abuse of power and control, as well as an attempt to bury the mythology in the Bible, which leads to the last part of part two of Dr. Winell’s series of articles.


Dr. Winell quotes one her clients suffering from RTS concerning the abuse suffered as a child at the hands of the religious:

I had so many pent up emotions and thoughts that were never acknowledged. Instead of protecting me from a horrible man, they forced me to deny my feelings and obey him, no matter what.  It’s no wonder I developed an eating disorder.

Winell continues and closes the second part stating that while religious communities appear to offer a safe environment, pressures to conform, adhere to impossible requirements, and submit to abuses of power can cause great suffering, which I believe can start long before a person leaves religion.  She adds that those with personalities that are more sensitive and those who sincerely believe the dogma are more vulnerable.

Dr. Winell starts part three by stating:


This last section gets deep with psychological based terminology, but she starts by saying that leaving religion is a death of one’s previous life.  Thus, one goes through a period of mourning, whether they suffer with RTS or not and while leaving is liberating for some, it devastates others because of the religious indoctrination they experienced.

It is a huge shock to the system, and one that needs to be recognized as trauma.

So what does it mean to leave religion?  According to Dr. Winell, leaving religion means leaving one’s social support, friends, structure, meaning and direction in life, and emotional or spiritual satisfaction, which psychologist generally place on Axis IV of the DSM classifications, which is psychosocial and environmental problems.  This can also lead to a low score on the Axis V, which is the global assessment of functioning scale (GAF scale).  In order to raise the Axis V score, one needs to rebuild and restructure the Axis IV.  However, this is why some people are sometimes suicidal after leaving religion.


According to Dr. Winell, people usually let go intellectually before letting go emotionally, but the last is more difficult than the first, probably due to the hijacking of various developmental stages that Dr. Andy Thompson referred to in his talk.

The list of problems Dr. Winell talks about are self-worth and fear of terrible punishment due to the fear most religions instil into people, especially for those who were indoctrinated at a very early age.  People can suffer with panic attacks and phobias after leaving religion, due to “phobia” indoctrination, as well as their life laid out and controlled for them in a religious setting.


In this part, Dr. Winell discusses the “Shattered Assumption Framework” by Kauffman, which is used to understand traumatic loss, such as a love one, but she states that this can explain a loss of faith too.

According to Beder (2004), ‘The assumptive world concept refers to the assumptions or beliefs that ground, secure, stabilize, and orient people. They are our core beliefs. In the face of death and trauma, these beliefs are shattered and disorientation and even panic can enter the lives of those affected.’

The most damaging traumas are those that are human-caused and involve interpersonal violence and violation (DePrince and Freyd, 2002).  (In my opinion, this would describe indoctrinating children in fear-based religion.) This approach names three basic assumptions held about the world that are shattered with these traumas:  the world is benevolent, the world is meaningful, and the self is worthy (Janoff-Bulman, 1992).  A fourth is sometimes included which says that others are trustworthy (Roth and Newman, 1991).  This model applies well to religion if one thinks of the ‘world’ as that created and maintained by the religious group.  The religious version of ‘self is worthy’ is usually a paradoxical view of the self which is both sinful and special.  That is, an individual has nothing intrinsic to be proud of but can have great purpose, and can play a role in a cosmic, spiritual drama.

When one acquires and learns new information, such as the mythology-based origins of religion, this can cause an extreme mentally shattering event.  Add to that, getting out into the real world after living in what I call “Wonderland”, can also cause a traumatic effect for some individuals.  It is as though your old world went nova and your suffering from a quantum influx of disequilibrium.

Traumatic experiences shatter basic assumptions and beliefs.   Conversely, a shattering of beliefs is traumatic.  Coping and healing from trauma requires an individual to reconcile their old set of assumptions with new, modified assumptions (DePrince & Freyd, 2002).  The trauma is understood to have both affective and cognitive components.

Loss of faith or leaving one’s religion viewed through this lens helps to explain the intensity of the trauma.  A religion contains a large and complex set of assumptions held to be true by the group.  Rejecting the ‘meme complex’ that has been passed on through generations is a major cognitive disruption as well as a risk of social rejection. Panic about being helpless in a meaningless world can result.

As I said, one suffers from what I call a quantum influx of disequilibrium, which is sometimes quite disturbing.

According to Dr. Winell, those who were most devote, sincere, and dedicated suffer the most trauma after leaving religion, because their whole worldview blew up in a cosmic sense or more mildly speaking and as Winell states it, like a divorce or death.

This of course can lead to a sense of betrayal and anger due the abuse one suffered within religion.  This abuse could come in the form of sexual abuse, which means the individual may feel betrayed by those who used religion to enable the abuse, instead of keeping the individual safe from harm as a child.  The feeling of betrayal and anger could be due the mental abuse the individual endured as a child from their elders or even mental, physical, and sexual abuse endured because of religious dogma, as well as robbed of a normal childhood.

She compares RTS with Complex PTSD, which is a psychological injury due to prolonged trauma with a lack of control.  This fits very well with individual indoctrinated since childhood.  As children, they cannot escape what terrorizes them and therefore must endure the psychological trauma and sometimes other abuses, until after they leave religion and then the trauma endured for a lifetime hits them all at once.

However, RTS is invisible because the perpetrators of the abuse often push the individual who left into returning, so their suffering goes unnoticed.



People often consider anger with the religious as abnormal, but anger with other abusers is normal.  This is not only confusing, but can lead to more anger and those who do not understand, blaming the victim of religious abuse.  This becomes a vicious cycle of being re-traumatized repeatedly.  Religion gets a free ticket, even by Children’s Servicesm to abuse people.

From an orthodox, conservative point of view, people who have left their religion and are suffering are seen as failures – they simply haven’t done it right.  A fundamentalist Christian view is that they have been ‘rebellious’ and brought about their own problems.  Depression and anxiety are often considered sins or even demonic attacks. Personal misery is seen as a natural result of rejecting God; being apostate brings God’s punishment.


When it comes to treatment, many who suffer with RTS cannot stomach the religious tones of such things as “12 Step Programs” and alike.

After one leaves religion, Winell states that cognitive issues are sometimes serious, because one must make decisions for themselves with under-developed critical thinking skills.  One must develop a new sense of self, as well as responsibility for their life.

The existential crisis can be enormous when one feels entirely groundless and must start over.

Dr. Winell believes that there is a great need for mental health professional to recognized Religious Trauma Syndrome and the seriousness of it.


About Mriana

  • zzzzz

    The pseudo-science of psychotheraphy is a religion in itself. The 'wafer' offered up is the mandatory drug.

    Last year, the pharmaceutical industry as a whole spent over $244 million on lobbying, and that's just the dollars-and-cents influence that was reported. As of 2009, the global market for pharmaceuticals was worth more than $837 billion, and is expected to reach $1.1 TRILLION in 2014.

    Source: OpenSecrets.org
    Source: IMSHealth.com

    • zzzzz

      Mriana Brinson has contributed a chapter to Dr. Marlene Winell's upcoming book. As both have vested interests in the book, neither would desire critical comments which would disparage said book.

  • http://www.toronto-family-lawyer.com Jay

    when i was a child, my grand parents used to force me to go to church, imagine a 5 year old kid forced to endure a religious gathering for almost 6 hours, can you imagine that? not to mention the whole rituals involved repetitive kneeling that a young kid cannot understand and when you show boredom, a psychological threat meets you. that was really horrible experience. i don't want to mention what religious group it was. don;t wanna offend? thank you anyway.

    Do you have more post like this topic?

    • http://www.houseofbetazed.com Mriana

      Yes, there are several posts concerning RTS. At least one is listed above in the list of related posts.

  • http://www.mindi.authormeanders.com M.E. Anders, the Cult Slayer

    I have spoken with Dr. Marlene Winell personally a few times, and she was incredibly helpful and knowledgeable about my experience escaping my prior IFB cultic life.

  • http://citizensfirstasnau.blogspot.com/ markjuliansmith

    Draft Constitution changes – Enabling the Independence of a Citizen be they Women, Men or Other

    “No citizen may be disturbed on account of their opinions, even religious ones, as long as the Foundation text informing such opinions or manifestation of such opinions does not promote nor achieve the interference of either the capacity of another citizen to determine their own opinions, even religious ones, without coercion or established Law and Order.”

    “Foundation text promoting the vilification of non-adherents to a Foundation text or unequal treatment of women vis-à-vis men will not be utilised by a citizens Elders or be allowed by the State to inform the opinions of new citizens nor be the basis of establishing Law and Order by the State.”

    "The State neither recognizes, nor salaries, nor subsidizes any religion".

  • http://www.davidnigri.com.br Advogado RJ

    The religious indoctrination and a very serious problem. In the era of knowledge and inconceivable that religion influences people in a way so exagerated

  • Pingback: Open thread on AETV 837: Russell and Tracie » The Atheist Experience

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