Doubt Your Beliefs? Have Questions About Changing Or Leaving Your Faith?
You Are Not Alone, And We Are Here To Help.
Learning how to live after questions, doubts, and changing beliefs is a journey. We at Recovering from Religion are intimately familiar with this path, and we are here to help you to cross that bridge. Our passion is connecting others with support, resources, community, and most of all, hope. We have two forms of support available below: peer support and professional support.
Dr. Darrel Wayne Ray
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darrel_Ray
Books
- Teaming Up: Making the Transition to a Self-directed, Team-based Organization (IPC Press 1995. ISBN 978-0-07-051646-5 Hardcover.)
- The Performance Culture: Maximizing the Power of Teams (IPC Press, May 2001. ISBN 978-0-9709505-0-5 Paperback.)
- The God Virus: How Religion Affects Our Lives and Culture (IPC Press, December 2009. ISBN 978-0-9709505-1-2 Paperback.)
- The God Virus: How Religion Affects Our Lives and Culture (Dogma Debate, LLC, November 2012. ASIN B00A8D0D9W. Audiobook.)
- Sex and God: How Religion Distorts Sexuality (IPC Press, January 2012. ISBN 978-0-9709505-4-3 Paperback.)
- Sex and God: How Religion Distorts Sexuality (Dogma Debate, LLC, February 2013. ASIN B00BCCW6PC Audiobook.)
RfRx – Live Online Talks
RfRx Talks, which take place every Monday evening, feature a wide variety of speakers including survivors of religious abuse, and leading experts in religious trauma recovery, relationships, grieving, and more. Recordings of previous RfRx events can be found on the Recovering From Religion YouTube channel and on the Recovering From Religion Podcast.
We reached out to Dr Darrel Ray, a clinical psychologist and one of the world’s leading experts in shunning and religious trauma. He pointed out that the emotional devastation caused by The Avoidance is not limited just to the people who are shunned.
Shunning has been practiced for centuries by many cults. Its use is designed to enforce rigid rules within a group. Unfortunately, it is also a devastating psychological practice. While the goal is to eliminate someone from the fold, it also damages many people that stay in the group. The shunned person suffers social isolation and much emotional damage but the parents, children, grandparents, siblings and many others experience deep loss and grief. Shunning of one person is like an emotional bomb going off that damages many other people. Unfortunately, those who stay in a cult are not allowed to mourn or acknowledge their loss and are often expected to act as if the person never existed, even though they had a deep connection to others. Emotional denial is the central harm of shunning and is made far worse in knowing the shunned person is still alive. I would submit that shunning hurts the “shunners” as much as the shunned. The shunned often move on to create emotionally balanced lives while the shunners experience the pain of loss with no reasonable way to grieve.
-Dr. Darrel Ray