A
neuroscientist and I got caught in a conversation while in a NY elevator. He
talked about his work with the brain and wanted to know what I did in treating
survivors of religious abuse. We got into the story of The Unholy and how
religious trauma affects not only the brain but the deepest recesses of soul.
It didn't strike him as odd that I'd emphasize this; but, it did hit him hard,
though, that he'd never considered soul as integral to trauma and its impact.
Well,
thus goes it in the world of everyday, mainstream, mental health care. It still
has a ways to go in terms of understanding that we are not only physical
beings, but soulful beings whose most intimate aspect is that of psyche, soul.
Psyche reels and is loaded with torment when traumatized by religious guilt,
fear, and deceit. A young man once shared a dream with me in which God appeared
to him in the form of a luminous woman who instructed him to enter into a
hallowed place within the center of the earth and there escape the terror of living
in a religiously rigid and angry family that incessantly berated him for not
being "worthy in the eyes of god." He stated that he learned to go
within himself, to "the place that for me was the center of the earth, the
center of my being." He fled within himself, to deep recesses of
soul, to protect himself from the religious trauma of being raised by parents
set on the dark side of religion.
A
childhood diagnosis of attention deficit disorder led to a regimen of
medication. He described it as "settling my brain but my soul was still
quivering, shaking inside me." The brain can be dealt with, treated when
injured by trauma; the soul requires patient tending and healing that requires
what he felt was "a good long time." In his adult years he entered
depth therapy and furthered his understanding and experience of psyche, soul.
He discovered that the ground of his being indeed lay within, in psyche. The
woman who had come to him in the dream during his adolescence returned many
more times to confirm her watchfulness over his life. He came to terms with the
reality that for the rest of his life he would be in the process of healing
from the damaging effects of having been immersed in the dark side of religion
during his childhood. Fortunately, the psychological injury was not as bad as
it could have been due to the dream he had had as a teenager. He responded
quickly to it, went within himself and there found safety.
The dark side of religion disrupts brain chemistry and physiology and traumatizes the soul; but, auspiciously, the psyche comes during dire times, and she guides us to turn within and discover hallowed realms of soul, the center of our being so as to begin the process of healing from injuries sustained by the lash of the dark side of religion.
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