Healing the Soul After Religious Abuse: The Dark Heaven of Recovery

Recent scandals of clergy sexual abuse have brought attention to the victims and their responses to and recovery from their abuse. But few have considered the effect of the abuse on a victim's soul and religious outlook and beliefs. This Dark Heaven, offers a unique perspective of recovery and restoration of the soul after religious abuse, which is what people suffer when leaders of their faith communities or others, exploit them in the name of God. It can devastate and alter their principles, their relationships, their sexuality, indeed, their whole sense of self. The author argues that religious abuse often stops not only psychological growth, but also inward development. The effect is not simply emotional, because the devastation reaches to the core of the spirit where there is no place for a God of love or a love of what once was divine. Through both research and personal stories of survivors, the author offers a pathway through the dark night of religious violation to the immense possibilities in recovering the soul.

Mikele Rauch is a licensed marriage, family, and child therapist with Brookline Psychological Services dealing with trauma, male and female sexual abuse, and clergy abuse. In 2004, she served on the Victims Rights Committee as a part of an Independent Review Board overseeing the Catholic Church's policies and procedures regarding survivors of clergy sexual abuse. She is a psychotherapist specializing in psychotherapy with male and female survivors of physical, sexual, and clergy abuse. She is a member of MaleSurvivor, the National Organization against Male Sexual Victimization and its International Retreat Team. She has written for theMissouri Review, the National Catholic Reporter, Cross Currents Magazine,Healing Ministry, and The New Therapist.