Season 7: Episode 3 - Expert Contributor Dr. Lisa Oakley

In this episode of Safe to Hope, Dr. Lisa Oakley, a professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Chester explains her 20-year journey in defining and addressing spiritual abuse, highlighting its emotional and psychological impacts. She emphasizes the importance of creating healthy church cultures and responding well to disclosures. Dr. Oakley will discuss the subtlety of spiritual abuse, the need for proper policies and processes, and the damaging effects of dismissal and discrediting survivors' experiences. Dr. Oakley is one of the foremost experts in spiritual abuse, her book Escaping the Maze of Spiritual Abuse is a foundational resource on this topic.

Season 7 Is It Spiritual Abuse?

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We value and respect conversations with all our guests. Opinions, viewpoints, and convictions may differ so we encourage our listeners to practice discernment. As well, guests do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of HelpHer. It is our hope that this podcast is a platform for hearing and learning rather than causing division or strife. 

Please note, abuse situations have common patterns of behavior, responses, and environments. Any familiarity construed by the listener is of their own opinion and interpretation. Our podcast does not accuse individuals or organizations.

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Transcript

Ann Maree  

 hello and welcome to the safe to hope podcast. Safe to hope. Hope, renewed in light of eternity, exists to offer women space to tell their stories of suffering and loss with care dignity and honesty.

Ann Maree  

Though all suffering is loss, we ground that belief in a God who cares and remains present, this is our hope.

Ann Maree  

This podcast is made possible by donors who believe faithfulness means protecting the dignity of women's stories and creating a space for truth telling without pressure or performance. Together, we listen for God's redemptive thread and look for ways to join him in his transforming work. Before we begin, we want to take a moment and care for our listeners, the safe to hope. Podcast typically includes discussions of abuse, and this season will as well. In particular, we'll be talking about spiritual abuse. However, our conversations may include other abuses. Please listen at your own pace and take breaks as needed. If at any point you need to pause or step away, that's okay, your well being matters.

Julia  

Hi, safe to hope listeners and welcome to another episode of season seven in our last episode, our very own Ann Maree shared her experience as an advocate, an expert and a church member. I've been very excited about who we have for you today. It's a privilege to welcome our new friend, Dr Lisa Oakley, her work has been influential and pivotal in my own life and healing journey, as I just shared with her backstage. So I feel especially thrilled to get to interact with her today. Dr Oakley is a professor of safeguarding and knowledge exchange in the Division of Psychology at the University of Chester in the UK, and is chair of the British Psychological Society safeguarding advisory group. She has spent more than two decades researching how faith, power and leadership intersect. She's authored and co authored landmark works, including the books breaking the silence on spiritual abuse, escaping the maze of spiritual abuse, and her most recent publication, responding well to spiritual abuse, which is a large scale study exploring how individuals and churches can move from Silence and confusion toward understanding, accountability and healing. Her work has helped shape conversations around the world about what spiritual abuse is, and just as importantly, what it is not providing language frameworks and pathways for prevention and restoration. Dr Oakley, we are honored to have you with us. Welcome. 

Lisa  

Well, thank you so much for inviting me such an important topic to talk about.

Julia  

So you've been in this work for a long time, and you've been an advocate, and you've been an educator and you've been a researcher. Can you tell us a little bit more about your work and research over the years? Yes. So I mean, the work has been ongoing now for over 20 years, so it's quite a long time. I it started with my doctoral work, which really, at that point in time, we weren't really using, well, we weren't using the terminology of spiritual abuse in the UK. So what I found was in America, that was the place where I found books talking about using this language and terminology. But I started off by, importantly, listening to people who'd had these experiences and looking at what the key features of them were, what the impact of this experience is, which is really important. And then from there, I've been fortunate enough to work in partnership with others such as Dr Catherine kimmund and an organization called 31 eight and just in Humphreys from that and we've done some surveys where we have asked people who've experienced spiritual abuse questions about control and coercion and but also importantly, questions about what does a good response look like, and what do we need to do to create healthy cultures in which these things are less likely to happen and more likely to be identified and responded to well if they do. And there's been lots of different pieces of research over that time, we did one more recently with another colleague, Dr clear Wright, where we looked at domestic abuse within the Christian faith context, but within that, we asked a question about spiritual abuse. Most recently, we've looked at experiences of disclosing abuse that have happened in a religious or spiritual context, and people's reasons for disclosing or not disclosing, and how they were responded to.

Lisa  

Me, and I think in all of that work, my the overarching aim has been to understand the experience so that we have a language and we can talk about it, to then be able to develop policy and practice and good response, and then to create these healthier cultures for the future. And I'm just very, very grateful for everybody who, over the course of all that time has actually taken part, because it's hugely costly for people to tell their story, especially if they've already told it or tried to and not been listened to. So I think for me, there's a real gratitude for the people who have journeyed with me in this so so the introductions are really lovely, but that the Esteem is for everybody who's taken part, because without those voices, we would not have learned the things that we've learned.

Julia  

And it's such a high value that you have to center the victim survivors stories, and that's clear. And all of the literature and your books, there's quotes and there's survivor experiences and documentation for all the the research that is out there, it's not just one survivor's experience. It's a community of survivors, and I think that's so important for many reasons. One reason I'm thinking in particular is that when survivors leave their communities, part of the injustice is that they don't get to share their story and their testimony, and so the way that you do research, by collecting their stories and hearing from them, is what we call testimonial justice that really furthers their healing story, but also their understanding of what happened to them. So I think it's so important and ethically important why you're doing the research the the way that you're doing it. I think so because I think sometimes within particularly qualitative research, kind of research that I predominantly do, we talk about giving voice to people, but actually people have got a voice. People have a voice. And what we need to be to be better at doing, and I'm still learning, is how to to listen to people's voices, and then how do we amplify the voices that people have so that people can listen to the experiences as told by those who've had those experiences. So I think that is a really key and important thing to do, and there's still lots of journeying and learning to do about how to do that. Well, yes, absolutely. Now, obviously, this is a big topic. It comes loaded with a lot of myths and misinterpretations and false ideas. What sort of obstacles have you come across in this work?

Lisa  

That's a big question. I think lots is the answer. I think that certainly at the beginning stages, I think there was a lot of concern, and I can understand where some of it comes from, but I think there was a concern that this work would be weaponized, that it would restrict religious freedom, that it would essentially stop people being able to practice their faith. So I think there was a lot of misunderstanding about that, and concerns about that. I think there was perhaps some misunderstanding about why I we were conducting the work in the first place, and what the motivations behind that were. But I think, I think, as I say, I do understand where some of the concern came from. You know, if you don't clearly define something, then could that terminology be used to mean lots of different things. But I think that the in once you start to have conversations with people, and you start to do the work of explaining what you're talking about, defining it, saying what the characteristics are, then people start to recognize what's actually being spoken about, as opposed to what they might think is. And so I think we have seen a change. We've seen a lot of change over the last Well, certainly, I would say probably over the last six years, and definitely within the last three or four, there's been a lot of change in people acknowledging, first of all, that this happens, that it is a real thing, that it does happen, and that it's important to talk about, that it is harm, that it's happening in mainstream churches, whereas I think there's perhaps been an understanding or a willingness to accept that certain practices might happen in other types of groups, but not within churches, and not just churches. And I think that's really important, because one of I think the pushbacks to my work has been, well, you're talking about the Christian faith, why aren't you talking about other faiths? And I think I'm really clear about that in the work. That's the faith background that I have myself. It's the it's the community and context that I know. But our most recent work has gone across faith and spiritual traditions. So we this is definitely something that we would see across but I think there has been more willingness to to engage. I think some of that has come from cases that have come. To light, and then people acknowledging that harm has been done. But I think we've also seen policy changes. So over here, we've seen policy, for example, in the Church of England, introduced around spiritual abuse. We've also seen the beginnings of recognition of spiritual abuse as a sometimes integral part of other forms of abuse and harm. So, for example, domestic abuse. So when we did some research a few years ago, in partnership with an organization called restored, which is a Christian domestic violence charity, and an organization called Broken rights, which works with divorced and separated clergy spouses, we asked a question about what forms of harm and abuse people had experienced, and of those who said they'd experienced who had experienced domestic abuse, 61% of them said they had experienced spiritual abuse that it's so one of the things we're understanding is that spiritual abuse can happen on its own, without any other form of harm, but it can also happen as an integral part of other forms of harm and abuse that people are experiencing, but it's often hidden form because we don't know so much about it, or we we don't acknowledge it in the same way. So I do think there's been a change. I think there's a long way to go, but I think there has been a change in people's response. And I think because we've begun to look also at, well, not just begun, but we've been looking at, well, how do we create these healthy cultures? Most people want the cultures that they're part of to be healthy. So actually, once we we're talking about that as well. People want most people sitting in a church on a Sunday. Want people there to be safe. They want this to be a healthy environment. And so once you start to see the work of spiritual abuse as part of creating a healthy culture that if we address these issues, if we talk about them, then we can begin to create cultures where we can identify harm, where we can respond to it. Then we begin to see a change in the way that people interact with and respond to the work.

Julia  

That's right, and what you're saying, essentially, is that you are for the church. You know when you're talking about before people pushing back against the work, or you know you're facing obstacles about misinterpretations or misunderstandings. Your work is to make the church a safe place and to embody what Christ's vision for the church was, and is.

Lisa  

I mean, I am. I'm a Christian, and I go to church every Sunday. And yes, it's always been about, it's been about a number of different things. One is, it's been about we need, we need to acknowledge harm where it happens. It really matters. And if you look across the history of different forms and harm and abuse. If you go back, you get to points where we didn't understand domestic violence, or we just talked about it as a marital issue, then we began to understand that that wasn't accepted. We needed to do something to address harm that people were experiencing. So for me, there was something about addressing this kind of harm that was really important. But then, how do we respond to this then? And then, how do we prevent it? Because we want to respond, well, when people harm, but we want to try and prevent as much harm as we can happening in the first place. And that's always been the motivation behind the work that we've done.

Julia  

Slightly prevention is so key. You mentioned that spiritual abuse is not a standalone category, and if we exclude it as a standalone category, it almost becomes this other and becomes like a mythical category. And one of the things that I appreciate about your definition of spiritual abuse is that it incorporates coercive control into it. So you're saying it's not just spiritual abuse. It is coercive control, and it has its tentacles and spiritual communities and language and how things are taught, how people interact with each other. So can you explain a little bit more about how you define spiritual abuse?

Lisa  

So we so in the work that kind of done over time, we and one thing I think that's really important to say when we talk about the terminology, I think it's, it's and you can correct me if I'm wrong, because you know better than me, but I think in your context, it's probably more accepted. I don't know. I might be wrong, but, but there has been kind of a lot of controversy about the terminology over here in the UK. And one of the things I would say is, if at any point in time, we have a terminology that is better to describe it, and we've been really upfront about this from the beginning, we would use it so it's not about sticking to this term, because it's a, you know, it's about what's the best term to describe what people are actually experiencing so, so, but in terms of what we found, we have found that it's a form of emotional or psychological abuse. So here we would talk about emotional abuse of children, psychological abuse of adults. And then there's this. Systematic pattern of coercive, highly coercive, controlling behavior within a religious context or with a religious rationale or justification to it. And then that that context could be a place of worship, but it could be, for example, a school environment in which there is faith and belief, or it could be a home environment in which there is faith and belief, and I think that latter bit is something that we've been learning about, particularly through the disclosure research, that it's really important to think about the areas where faith and belief are operating and how that might be controlled in particular situations. So we would be looking for this pattern of controlling coercive behavior with this religious rationale or within this religious context, and then that would could be a key characteristics of that some of those might look very similar to other forms of harm and abuse, and some of them are quite distinctive, I Think, to spiritual abuse. I just

Julia  

want to highlight again, that part of your definition is that there is emotional and psychological abuse, and that's consistent over the research and over the literature, and it's impactful and meaningful to me as a survivor and as a clinician, because that means when you see the impact of spiritual abuse, it it's not as if this person can just geographically change locations, right? The impact lingers and and that's important so that we don't discount it, and we can really enter in and and assist people on the healing process. So again, I think, I

Lisa  

think it's important as well, because so for us, emotional and psychological abuse are statutory categories. They are recognized categories. And so where we're, where we're working with individuals who might be in contact with services, it's really helpful to use language that those services will recognize. But also, there are so many common characteristics between emotional abuse, psychological abuse and spiritual abuse. So you know, we would see that pattern of behavior. We would see the undermining, we would see the distortions of reality. We would see those that kind of gaslighting behavior in in those different forms of harm and so. So actually being able to to to acknowledge the similarities is really important, because what number one, it helps people to to have language to talk about what's happened to them, but it also has helps us to have language that that other people will recognize and understand, and so that can help an acknowledgement of what has happened to an individual.

Julia  

You mentioned that our context is different than yours, and hearing you say that there are statutory categories for emotional and psychological abuse is shocking. It shocks me, we don't have that. We don't have that here, it is not it's not something that is legally recognized. It's not something that, really, from what I see in my particular categories, that people believe are even a thing, particularly in the church.

Lisa  

That's and I think that's really important, because I think that because those four so, so coerce So, if we take coercive control, it can be very, very difficult to evidence, because often coercive control happens in conversations. It happens in things that are not documented. Sometimes it does happen in things that are documented, but often it doesn't and so and because you're often looking for a pattern of behavior, one of the things that I've heard repeatedly in the work that I've done from people is that when they are coming to disclose spiritual abuse, that they need to be able to to tell a series of events that have happened to them so that the person listening can Hear the control. And when you talk about one event on its own, a, it's very easy to minimize it and B, it might not sound to the listener like, this is a, this is a big event. This is a harmful event. But when you start to put events together, then you start to see the patterns that are emerging. So it is really important, but it is very difficult to evidence, and we had a change in the definition of domestic abuse here to include coercive control. And I'd have to check the numbers, but it would be very, very small number of cases who actually ever reach any kind of prosecution on the basis of coercive control and no other form of harm. And that, I just want to be really clear that's not the aim of my work. Isn't about prosecution, because that's something that has been raised a lot. However, if people are harmed and abused, then that should go through the same process as any other form of harm and abuse. So I think, I think that's important, but I think understanding psychological emotional abuse is really key.

Julia  

Be and the nature of spiritual abuse, or any kind of abuse, is that it does stay hidden. So can you speak to that how spiritual abuse is often missed?

Lisa  

Yeah, I think the first thing is that we don't have the knowledge and understanding of it in the same way that we do of other forms of harm and abuse. So I think because we don't have the knowledge and understanding, we don't talk about it as much. If it's not included in something like safeguarding training as a topic, you're not going to know what you're looking for in terms of indicators and signs. So I think that's one thing, is that that we need to talk about it much more, and I think that's part of why it gets missed. I think sometimes behavior can become normalized. So it can become that, that's, that's what you that that behavior that control is there and has been there for such a long time that it's, it becomes normalized for an individual, and it's very difficult. And if you're in a whole culture that's operating like that, that looks like the normal behavior. And often it might be not until you leave or until something happens that you actually begin to see and that is common with other forms of abuse and harm as well. I think the other thing is, sometimes people will be put in a position where they are made to believe that they're responsible for what's happening to them so they so there is a lot of self blame that happens, and feeling responsible for what's happened to you, and that might be said to you, it might be implied to you, but but that can be a reason why it stays hidden. I think that that often, because of the kinds of behaviors, it includes, people become very worn down by the experience that they're having that makes it incredibly difficult to speak out spiritual abuse, as it's called, because it's control and coercion, one of the ways in which people are controlled is through censorship. So don't speak out if you don't ask questions, don't disagree, and don't speak out if you're not you know to say anything that isn't positive. So then, if you are in a cultural relationship where censorship is key, then when you you leave that then that censorship is still there. It's a really difficult thing to share. We did some research last year where we were looking at people's experiences of counseling and therapy, we have just developed some CPD for therapists around spiritual abuse, and we wanted to talk to people who'd experienced it and therapists who who provided therapy for it. And one of the quotes that sticks with me, and I may not get this exactly right, so I might correct it later, but, but the quote that sticks with rumors about someone saying would not agree with that, then that that's another whole layer that will will add to that censorship and silencing. I think, I think the other reason why it might be hidden is because sometimes we there is a tendency to to want to protect the institution or the individual and and that's another reason why it becomes hidden.

Julia  

Now those are really helpful descriptors and symptoms of of what you see often, and these faith contexts and how they present an individual's stories. And also, I think there's a lot of differences in people's stories, and I'm wondering specifically, if you've seen a difference and experiences between men and women, if there's a gender difference,

Lisa  

I think it's not something that we studied specifically, but I can't give you a yes, this is what the research says about that, because it's not something we studied. It's certainly something that would be like something that we'd like to look at more, and also children's experiences, because I think that's really, really understood it. But I think in my PhD research, there was a sub theme about the role of women and what, what came out of that was expectations of women, or what women were allowed to do and weren't allowed to do and that that could be used to control behavior. And then when we did the Domestic Violence Research, we asked people about scriptures that were used to either to to justify the abuse or prevent people from leaving and and people talked about scriptures on the roles of men, husbands, wives, etc, and how those were used to prevent people from being able to speak out about the harm that they were experiencing, but also to prevent them from being able to leave an abusive relationship. And I think what's really important to understand about that is those, those can be harmful for men and women. So if you use a passage about men. So one of the respondents in their research said, you know that, that because the verse, you know husbands should love their wives, the Jesus of the church was used as as a basically to to prevent him from being able to speak out when he was experiencing domestic abuse. So. Yeah, I think there's a lot more to look at. And there are lots of people who are, you know, have looked at kind of gender and experiences within faith who could speak to that much more than I can, but I would say that that we've definitely found some things within the work that we've done so far. And I think there's, there's a lot more to think about in terms of that as well.

Julia  

Ann Maree, is there anything that you would see as being different and experiences from men and women?

Ann Maree  

Well, yeah, of course, there's going to be differences. As we receive things differently too. But I'm just sitting here appreciating even hearing that coming from you, coming from another country, even, but also something that I think is being heard more frequently here. Abuse doesn't just impact one gender, because it impacts the female gender so much more often. That's why, you know, we have an organization called help her, and we are totally focused on our female audience, but we are coming to terms with finding more and more men who have been impacted and even secondarily, like even if it's even if the female gender is predominantly impacted by any abuse, spiritually included, that hurts men we were created for each other in a helping way, in a complementary way, and I'm not talking about complementarianism. And so when one hurts, I mean, Paul says it, when one part of the body hurts, the whole body hurts with it. And so I think your work, well on the whole your work, is so very important to us as an organization, and we need to keep up with your scholarship, because it's going to be very impactful for how we train others to care well. I mean, I

Lisa  

think, I think what we we have to put spiritual peace within the framework of what we already know about violence and abuse. So we do know that that violence is very much gendered. So we do know that, we do know there is a very and we we can't dismiss that or not talk about that, because that is there, and it's really important. I think what we then want to do is understand, okay, what are the other factors and what are the other characteristics, so that we want to learn more and more, so that we can understand more and more the different ways in which harm and abuse happens. So in our survey that we did with 31 eight in 2017 one of the key findings from that was leaders can and are victims of spiritual abuse. And so lots of the work had talked about power being top down and and that certainly can be the case. So so lots of the work was talking about ministers or leaders as those perpetrating but actually we found in our survey that that was that was very clearly there as well. And it is, you know, if you're in a position of institutional power, you already have an authority. But actually we heard from many people who were in positions of leadership who had experienced spiritual abuse, either from those who were higher above them, or from actually people in their congregation. So I think for me, one of the things is we want to learn more about how harm happens, and the different ways in which it happens and the different characteristics, so that we can be better and better at identifying it, responding to it and preventing it.

Julia  

Yeah, that's right. And if the unhealth and toxicity is in a system and in a culture, it will eventually impact everybody, gender, children, age, yeah,

Lisa  

yeah, definitely. And I think it's really important. So that's why the work on culture is so important, because it's really interesting. If you ask people, ever did anybody when and when was the last time you talked about culture in your church community? You know, Have you ever talked about culture? It's so important. You know what's what's implicit in our cultures? You know what things that we you know that I talk about things and biblical discourses. But you know, when we talk about unity, what do we actually mean by that? What does it actually mean? Because, in a good sense, in a positive sense, in a sense, I think it was meant. It's about looking after each other and caring for each other and pulling together in times of need and all of those things. But, but I, in my PhD research, somebody, one of the quotes that's that always stays with me is the one that said, Keep your head down and your mouth shut and look on it as a case of keeping unity. And so there's something really important about thinking what's in our culture, what are the implicit things in our cultures that, you know, Justin Humphreys from 31 eight often talks about what's in your soil, you know, what's there that you're growing in? And I don't think we often do that, and we've started to do some of that work the churches and organizations, and it's been a really positive but the first thing that you need to do is say, Well, what actually, what is happening? So for example, you know, often within spiritual abuse, people will be taught explicitly or implicitly that you mustn't ask a question or disagree because. If you do that, that's either disobedience or dissent, and you will be I think there's somebody who says, if you say there's a problem, you become a problem. I think that's in sort of power of spiritual abuse. So, so, so then when we ask the question, Well, is it all right to ask questions here? That's a really good question for us to start to ask what's going on in our cultures? And I'm not, and I don't think we do a lot of that. So, so just going back to what Ann Maree said, you know, what? What are our values around women, around children, around you know, those are things that we really need to start to be asking ourselves,

Julia  

are there specific structures or practices or policies that do help a church stay transparent and healthy.

Lisa  

So I think, I mean, we have done some work around healthy cultures, a couple of things that might be helpful for people if they want to even just start on a journey of thinking about these things. 31 eight have got something called the culture cube, and it's got, like, six sides to it, and it's and it's really in so in that book escaping the maze, Justin wrote the sections on culture. And it's, it's sort of a development of that, really. And it looks at different aspects of culture, like managing power, governance structures, listening well, to stories of harm from the past. And so you can use that as a tool to kind of think about, well, how do we who holds power, and where's the power held? Visit like Ann, formally and informally. Whose voices don't we listen to? Who don't we hear? So that there's those kinds of things, and then we've looked at kind of, what are the hallmarks of a healthy culture, so things like respecting and valuing and nurturing each other, if you do those things, then the kinds of stuff that we're talking about doesn't fit with that. If you have safeguarding as a foundation, it doesn't fit with that healthy accountability. We talk in the spiritual abuse work about enforced accountability, so being made to be accountable to somebody without any kind of choice about that, and not any real clear rationale for why that's so important about every little bit of what's being discussed. But actually, healthy accountability is really important, if we look at so last year, I did a bit of a review of reviews. So we have things called Lessons Learned reviews, and I had a bit of a look at some of those. And one of the things that came up again and again and again was lack of accountability that there might look like there was accountability, but in reality, there wasn't any accountability, I think, guiding behavior, but respecting choice. So there's something there about not being in a situation of control. And so we've started to look at those kinds of factors in how they might help to build a healthy culture and community. So I think, I think accountability is key. I do think it's really important that you have policies and procedures in place. You know, if people are being harmed and there's no procedure, there's no policy, but to be able to bring that harm forward, and that is, is often the case in spiritual abuse. Then, then, where does somebody go if they're being harmed in that way? So I think those things that I teach students about that that sound a bit boring, like policy is actually really, really important, because, you know, have you got a policy around these things? And then other things about knowing where to go for help and support and how to to signpost people to help and support is really important. But I think kind of doing a review of your culture can be really key. And there's all kinds of tools that can help people do that and ask some questions that you might want to ask yourself. But I think, I think some of the kind of keys of a healthy culture is that healthy accountability. It is supervision. You know, one of the things that we talk about is what supervision is there in place for people, and that's both a supportive thing, but also there is some accountability in that. And often in our church communities, we might not have supervision, and that's neither healthy or helpful. I think one of the other things is we've developed this spectrum of behavior. So at the one end of the spectrum is so i It's I can send you it if it's easier for you to see a diagram of it, but it's basically got four circles, and that one end is a green circle. We have some sweets in the UK called fruit polos, and somebody calls it my fruit polo diagram. So that's that's what a lot of people refer to it as now, but the green fruit Polo is healthy behavior, and so one of the things we need to get better at doing is capturing when things are good. Because often we nobody. Somebody once said to me, Why does nobody ever tell us what good looks like? So I think that's really important. What does healthy look like? What does a non harmful culture look like? I think that's really important. Then if you go up the spectrum a little bit, you get to the first yellow circle, and that is unhelpful behavior, and we're all guilty of that from time to another where we might not understand somebody. We might not communicate well upset somebody, but we can usually recognize it or or someone can help us recognize it, and we can address it. Move ourselves back down. If you go up a little bit further, you might come to the second yellow circle, which is unhealthy behavior. So you've moved from unhelpful to unhealthy. So we start to see in terms of spiritually abuse, patterns of controlling behavior emerging. We might see somebody check themselves before they talk to somebody. It's not uncommon for people to rehearse conversations because they're really trying not to get a word that will create a reaction from the individual. And then, if you, if you carry on and you get to that systematic pattern of controlling coercive behavior with that religious rationale, or in that religious context, you can cross that threshold into spiritual abuse. And so one of the tools can be to think about where is behavior along the spectrum, because the earlier we can address behavior, the better it is for everybody, because we don't want people to have to be at the very end in the red circle being harmed. We want to address behavior earlier. So I think one of the other things about, you know, what does a healthy culture look like, is a culture which actually does, does look and does some of that kind of self reflection, but is not afraid to to challenge behavior where it isn't helpful, and now that challenge needs to be done well, so it's not damaging, but it should happen, you know. And I hope it's okay to say it, but I don't think we're terribly good at that. I think we often want to kind of all be nice to and I'm, you know, very much that sort of person. But actually, when somebody is being unhelpful, there is a point at which we can, we can actually say, but I didn't find that very helpful. That wasn't very helpful to me, and that person might not actually under realize that, but it gives them the opportunity to reflect on it at that lower level before that behavior might escalate. If the behavior has escalated, then it needs to go in a different direction to be dealt with. So I'm not in any way saying, you know, we just, we're excusing behavior. Absolutely not. What I'm saying is we need to start looking at the behaviors we're seeing in our contacts and say and being, being brave enough, and agreeing as a community that it is okay to raise concerns. It is okay to go to go to somebody if something's happened that's not been helpful, and to have a conversation about that, because if you create that as a ground rule, then when somebody tells you it's not okay, or you're not allowed to do it, then then that starts to raise alarm bells. But we need to have those conversations about it's okay in a healthy culture. People can disagree. In a healthy culture, people can raise, and should raise concerns. In a healthy culture, there should be accountability. None of those things are things that are not good, or not or not something that looks like a Christian community. And I think that's where sometimes we, we sort of get told, Oh, well, you know, you just got to have faith, or, you know, you've got to trust God more. Now, I'm not saying anything negative about those things, but, you know, if I, if I read the Bible, I see lots of people asking Jesus questions, that's right. And so, so I think there's, there's lots there. Sorry, that was a very long answer. So I think there's lots there to unpack.

Julia  

Now, I think giving people permission to see things from a different vantage point, to move in earlier, where it is safe to speak concerns and to even to be able to say that this is a part of the healthy community, and we see it in Scripture. It's all over scripture, where we're supposed to grow together in love and in truth, rebuke, hold one another accountable, and it's for the sake of purity, and it's for the sake of growing up in Christ likeness. You're talking about accountability, you're talking about honest conversations, you're talking about policies. I'm sensing that you've seen change. I'm saying that there's hope.

Lisa  

I Oh, definitely. I think, yes, we have seen change. I think that's, you know, that it would be dishonest to say anything else, because we have, you know, we have seen different denominations have policies now that include spiritual abuse. We have seen organizations that have started to specifically with a focus on responding to people who have experienced spiritual abuse. We are seeing more. Even just this morning, I got an email saying, Would you like to come, and would you come and talk about spiritual abuse at our conference? Because we want our conference focus to be on that. That's a massive change from if you if we went back 10 years, it's a huge change. So I think we have seen change. I think there's a lot more work to do. And I think one of the things that I wouldn't want to in any way. Kind of seem like I'm saying is it's all okay now we've dealt with it all, because it really isn't. And what I would say is you can't start the work of healthy cultures until you've addressed the abuse and harm that has happened in your context already. Yet you can't, because sometimes people would be quite happy to jump to that bit. But we have to address spiritual abuse and other forms of harm and abuse. We have to do that because people have experienced them. When we wrote the book, escaping the maze, just Ann, I said the title is escaping the maze and spiritual abuse creating healthy Christian cultures. And the publisher said to us, would you would you consider turning the title around and having it as creating healthy Christian cultures, escaping the maze and spiritual abuse? And we said no, because we haven't escaped the maze yet. This is a huge issue that remains unaddressed for many, many, many people right now. So, so there's a huge amount of work still to be done. And you know, Ann maree's experience speaks to that there's a huge amount of work still to be done in acknowledging harm that has happened, and that is going to take some time yet. And so I think that's really important that we don't miss the fact that we still have to address harm that has been perpetrated.

Julia  

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, you're mentioning your book escaping the maze of spiritual abuse. I love the imagery of it being a maze, because it feels as somebody who has a personal experience, it feels like there's twists and turns and loops and blocked blocked doorways and you're trying to reroute, and it feels like there's an impossible escape your book, your other book, breaking the silence on spiritual abuse, also has the process map of what it looks like in individual stories, which is so similar to other cases of abuse. And it was, it was helpful for me and helpful for many other people. Ann Maree, I remember I shared it to you. Do you remember your response? You looked at it, you were like and then you gave that back to me like this. This is too true. This speaks too much to my experience. Would it be helpful just to describe the process map and what individual cases look like, yeah. I mean, I can do that, but I want to give you the opportunity.

Lisa  

Yeah, I think, I mean, one thing I would say is we need to do more work on this. So this is kind of my next thing to look at, because what we do know is this isn't the process for everybody now. So I think that's really important. There are different processes so that we want to do some more work. But in terms of what we've got at the moment, we often find that people have a really positive initial experience. They might feel very welcome, they might feel very included, they might feel like this is the place that they've always been looking for. That, in and of itself, is not problematic. We would want people to feel like that. That's quite that can be a very positive thing. But then what we start to see is increasing involvement, sometimes being given responsibilities or roles, again, in and of itself, quite a normal process. And then we would see what I what I call a catalyst, but an event where somebody experiences control. It might not be a huge amount of control, but it might be something where, for example, somebody is perhaps reprimanded for not attending a church meeting because they've gone to a family event, and they start to think, and they kind of feel a bit uncomfortable, but it's not enough to make you think, no, this is not okay. And so there's often a positive explanation. So there's often a controlling event followed by a positive explanation. We just care about you. It's really important for your Christian journey to make sure you're here at things. And then there's a recommitment, and that can go on for quite some time. That cycle of control, the control might escalate over time. It might become more pervasive in terms of different aspects of your life, but there's that continuing cycle of experiencing control. Sometimes that control might be connected to God. So God being seen as complicit, this is what God wants, or it might be connected to somebody holding a divine position. So God's put me here. You can't question what I'm saying. Sometimes it might be control related to the use of Scripture. It might be related to me. So there's a lot of characteristics that might be related to and that cycle can carry on for a long time, and usually, but not always. Usually, there is a final catalyst. It doesn't have to be a big event of control, but it might just be one thing too many, where somebody goes, I can't I've realized what's going on, and I can't be part of this anymore. It's all that people have talked about having their eyes opened. They can't go back to where they were. And then often people will exit. Sometimes they don't, either because it's it's too difficult to or because the person perpetrating that behavior might leave. But often they will exit. And then there's a whole to list of long term impacts following. That so people might find an impact on, well, on their sense of self and identity, who they are. They might fight. They might feel angry. They might be very scared, especially if there's been spiritual threats about what might happen. They might feel very isolated, especially if they've left and they've spent more and more time there, then they haven't got the supposed support network that they had. They might feel some blame for what happened. You know, why? Why did this happen? I might have, I might have acted in a way towards other people, thinking I was doing it for the right reasons. And then I've got to unpack and unpick that there might be a huge impact on faith and belief and and within that, there's that big impact on self, because you don't know who to trust. And one of the first things I wrote was called unsafe in a safe place, because somebody said to me, I was unsafe in a place I should have been the most safe, and now I don't know what's safe and who's safe anymore. So the biggest outcome that we see is distrust, not knowing who to trust anymore, and that can have huge implications for being able to talk about what's happened to you, either professionally to a therapist or within a friendship relationship or family relationship. So there's there's huge outcomes, but that's the kind of cycle that we've seen. But as I say, we need to do a little bit more work, because we've had some people saying, well, actually, my experience wasn't positive at the beginning, so we need to do a little bit more work on that. But, but that, that kind of experience can often resonate with a lot of people in terms of what they go through, and it obviously has parallels to experiences domestic violence and control as well.

Julia  

Yeah, and it's not always or often one or two events. It's a series of events, and the person who's experiencing this harm is attempting to stay because it would cost so much to leave, or it's hard for them to see clearly. From a church member's perspective as well, they see the person leaving, and there's a lot of assumptions then that flood the space. They couldn't handle conflict. It was a miscommunication. We should do peacemaking if they could just get in the room together. They didn't try hard enough without seeing the fuller context of the maze or the map of the years long journey that ended up at this point. So I think that's also helpful for maybe other people who haven't experienced spiritual abuse to notice that it is complicated and it's complex and it's never simple.

Lisa  

Yeah, I mean, very early days, somebody said to me, why don't people just leave? And so it's so much more complicated than If

Julia  

only you were that easy. Tell me what

Ann Maree  

that looks like. I do it. But you know, there's also a lot of complexity to the leading. Like I could tell you right now that I thought I left, but it it followed me.

Lisa  

Yeah, and absolutely Ann, that's really, really common. And I think leaving is huge. It's huge because you may have watched other people leave, because often these experiences are cyclical. So you might have watched others leave, and you are aware of what happens when they leave. So often they're not contacted, often they are discredited. And so you are aware of that also you've probably spent lots and lots of time, as I said, in that context, leaving is is really scary. And then if there has been a layer of anything like, this is the place that's got the real blessing, or this is where God wants you to be, that's it. That's another layer that is really makes it incredibly difficult to leave. So there is a hot there's so much connected. And as you said, Ann Maree, there's a there is an ongoing impact of this experience. And some people will talk to me about how, you know, they work through one layer of it, and then something else happens. I think, Oh, hang on, that's another, that's another layer that I need to now work through about about that experience. So so it's hugely complex to leave and and that's why we need much better understanding, so that we respond well when people are talking about their experiences, because there tends to be a dismissiveness, or let's not talk about that, because it's uncomfortable, or it becomes equated to gossip. We don't want to gossip about other Christians, so let's not talk about it. But once we start to get an understanding of what's actually happened to somebody, we can see that that isn't, that isn't a suitable or an effective or appropriate response to what somebody's experienced. Interestingly, I think it was what you said, Julia. But in the research that we did, one of the things that people we asked people, what do you want people to say, or what don't you want them to say? One of the things that people did talk about was Matthew 18, and they talked about that, saying that, that what they were told is, you know, you've got a problem with somebody. You need to go and talk to that person. Person and people were really clear with us that this is not a situation where you should be sitting two people in a room together, because they might have disagreed about what to send the church budget on that year, or what kind of coffee the church should have, or whatever. This is a this is a abuse and harm. And in no other situation, one person actually said, in no other situation would you suggest that? And you shouldn't hear and we do sometimes, well, not just sometimes, but there can be quite a common response about mediation or about and you've got to put this in the context of other harm and abuse and think, how would I respond? How? What would appropriate response be to other harms of form of abuse, and therefore, what is an appropriate response here? And so, so that's just a really important learning that came out of our research, is that that it's really important that the response isn't go and talk to that person, if you're you know, if people are experiencing the this control, highly controlling behavior. That's that response is not a safe response.

Ann Maree  

I was thinking about the similarity too, that we've hardly even come to terms with, I guess is in, at least in Christian environments, and the people we've worked with, is people still saying that in domestic abuse situations, why didn't she just leave? And we know full well in our help that there are such good reasons some women don't leave, and so it just isn't helpful. It's not helpful at all in either situation or any of the abuse situations, for sure,

Lisa  

it also puts a responsibility on the individual who's experienced the harm you know, because we could be asking the question, why doesn't the church do something you know, rather than, why don't they leave? Why isn't the church doing something that's that's an interesting question to ask. Why? Why isn't the individual? Why is it? Why aren't they being, you know, there being some action taken against that individual, rather than the person who's experiencing the harm. And when I say about that, I mean, they, you know, you can you do investigations for other forms of harm. You can do that for this as well. So there's no assumption of what's happened, but you but there can be a proper investigative process which actually, which actually listens to what, what has been happening. But I think when people raise that, you know, you can just leave that. I just I often think, why don't we say, why isn't the church doing something?

Julia  

Yeah, I've also heard, why don't you just, or why didn't you just, or simply, if you're that unhappy, just leave. Yeah, there's a lot of different ways that can that concept of putting responsibility back on you gets framed if we can turn to some of the more particular details of Ann Maree story. Usually we don't have the storyteller with us. As you're reflecting back on her story, I know Ann Maree wanted to be careful about how she interacts, but I I sort of envision me bringing her into her into your office, and her talking about her story, and you helping to reflect back what you hear. So the idea that I want to pull out is this difference of perspective, and that's used in a variety of contexts, but specifically in the church, where the pastors ultimately have final authority to rule on a case or to say what it is and what it's not, and if you have even A professional assessment, it's framed as a difference of perspective.

Ann Maree  

The day, I saw the writing on the wall for how things would play out for me, I was in my community pastor's office. I had set up a meeting with him to discuss one of my cases. However, I was very cautious in revealing too much information the victim of domestic abuse who I had been helping, had approached me gingerly and self conscious to share the reality in her home. There was no way I was going to divulge the precious few details. She reluctantly revealed I knew that would devastate her, so instead, I hinted to my pastor that I had enough information to raise a red flag. That's when the conversation went downhill. Dan said that in situations such as these, he needed to know everything, and he would need to hear it from the woman. I responded with something I actually wrote in the helper book, revealing this particular type of information creates an intimate atmosphere, one that a victim may not want to have with a pastor. For me, it made perfect sense that having an intermediary sift through. What to share would help protect not only the emotions and triggers for the woman, but also protect the mind of a man from visualizing delicate details. But apparently that made no sense to my pastor. He told me he would be unwilling to take my word regarding the severity and by not divulging details, it put him in a difficult position.

Lisa  

So I think the framing of things as a difference of perspective, it's about what's being talked about, isn't it? So if you are talking about as we've just talked about, if you're talking about things like, you know what we spend our money on as a church, that's that can be differences of perspective, if you're talking about abuse and harm, that's very different. And I think that one of the things that's really important is theological leaders become theological leaders because they've had theological training. So so we would put somebody in into a position of ministry because they have training, and therefore have expertise in that area, in situations of abuse and harm. We need people who have experience and expertise and abuse and harm to be the people who are investigating those cases and who are making judgments on those cases. And so actually, we need really clear boundaries. We need really clear policies and processes and and there is a really important thing about being able to draw an independent advice and independent organizations to to to come into a situation, rather than somebody making a decision internally about what has happened. So I think there's a so so I think that framing it as a difference of perspective is is at best, a minimization. But I think what's really, really important is that that recognizing that if you want, if, if you are in a case where there is an accusation and concern about abuse and harm, there needs to be expertise about abuse and harm in in the final decision making process, and I think so you you can't dismiss that as a difference of perspectives in in other cases, sometimes it's not, it's very common for people to raise concern about controlling behavior that they've experienced and for that to be respected reflected back as, Oh well, that's, that's, that's not how it happened. It's, that's your version of it. That's very common. Minimization, dismissing is very, very common. And so I do think there's something really important, where, where the where expertise is listened to. And I think if you if a situation arises where, where somebody with expertise isn't listened to, that's where there should be a pro. This is why the processes and the policies are so important, because there should then be a policy in place that takes it outside. And we've got that. We've got the kind of an ongoing debate here at the moment where we're looking at having external, an external safeguarding organization that people can take cases to if they don't feel that when they've been through the internal structure that it's been, it's been listened to or addressed properly. Now that's really difficult, because there's, there are lots of complexities about that. I'm a real proponent of it, but there are complexities about it, because it's likely that, if you're in a very controlled environment, those cases will never go there. So So I think it's really the the importance is that you need somebody with expertise, and you need to listen to that expertise, and if that expertise isn't listened to, there should be a process which can then carry on from there. It shouldn't end at that point

Julia  

when there's that sort of minimization and dismissal. And it becomes a pattern. And it's not simply about one case or one experience. What often do you see about the impact it has on an individual?

Lisa  

I mean, it's huge. Because, you know, we talked about how difficult the censorship and how difficult it is for anybody to come forward and talk about their experience. I think it was Ann Ross that said you only risk telling your story once, and how that's responded to will determine you know what you do again. So it's absolutely huge if you're dismissed and if it's minimized. But but the reason we see so it is not uncommon for us to see a number of individuals who have left the same context and have the same account about the same individual, or individuals because, because it isn't addressed. And so what often happens is people we've seen is that people try to raise a concern and either within or. They leave, and then they try and raise it, because it's actually really hard to do that when you're still in the organization, and then that's dismissed, but effectively you're not part of it anymore. And then other people will come in, and they'll be at that positive bit of the cycle, thinking that everything's okay and wonderful and and then, and for some people, it will stay that way always, but other people will be working their way through that cycle. And so there is a huge impact. And when I talked about Ann, one of the biggest causes of anger is that people learn that other people have been through that experience and nothing happened, and then they know it didn't have to happen to them, because there was a possibility to intervene and to do something earlier. But that possibility wasn't an that opportunity was missed. And in the disclosure research, which wasn't just on spiritual abuse, it was all forms of abuse and harm within religious and spiritual contexts, one of the themes that we've got there is missed opportunities, where people were trying, or there were indications that harm was happening and nothing was done. And so so it's really important that that there is effect, there are effective processes, policies, practices, and then that, that there is somewhere you can go if that isn't followed.

Julia  

It almost sounds like you're saying that the framing of it as a difference of perspective is a type of censorship. Am I correct in hearing that? Yeah, it sounds very subtle.

Lisa  

Well, because, because, in a sense, it it stops the conversation. Doesn't say so, that's right. This is a difference. This is a difference of perspectives. Therefore no further action is needed. Is kind of, what, what? What comes after that? So I it stops the conversation. It stops stops it because, and it's also a very difficult argument to argue against, isn't it? That's right. So, so, you know, so Well, no, it's not a difference well, it is when it isn't because of these things, but, but you're, you're, you've stopped the conversation at that point,

Julia  

and that neutralizes truth telling, right? But it doesn't ever sound abusive in and of itself. It sounds logical,

Lisa  

but a lot of of spiritual abuse is, I mean, the, you know, the book that I read, the first book I read, was the subtle power of spiritual abuse, and it's that subtlety that is so key for many people, and that's why it takes such a long time, often, for anybody to recognize their experience as as as that, because it is so subtle, and it's mixed with lots of positive certainly at the beginning, probably not so much towards the end, but at the beginning, lots of positives, and it is very subtle, and it's very difficult, and there's lots of implicit stuff that you don't know about. It's there in the ether. So you know the kind of rule that we don't ask questions. You might not be ever explicitly told that you don't ask questions, but it's only when somebody asks a question and they get responded to in a particular way that you realize that you don't ask questions, and then you and can enter into self censorship, because you don't want that to be your experience.

Julia  

And at the end of the day, if there's a difference of perspective, whose perspectives, when wins out, it's the one with the most power.

Lisa  

Yeah, power is,

Julia  

sorry, Ann Maree, were you go ahead.

Ann Maree  

I mean, the one that I've been thinking about so often, because we hear it all the time, is trust your leaders. And that's not explicitly saying Don't ask questions, but it is implicitly saying it Yes.

Lisa  

So I would say that one of the verses that I often hear from people is touch, not My Anointed. And people have said, you know, we've got quotes in the books of you know, I can't question them, because it's like questioning God, so there is there. That's really powerful. Again, it's why we have to talk about this stuff, because when we start to talk about it, then people, we can start to say to people, it's right to ask questions about that. It's all right to do that. So that difference of perspective is one of the things I do as a psychologist is look at language, and the language is really interesting, isn't it? Because even using the term perspective, it's a lower level, isn't it? So you've gone to talk about some harm that has been experienced, and then we're talking about perspectives. And so we've already kind of lowering what's being talked about in terms of how it's being talked about, and then then it stops the conversation where it's very difficult then to continue, which is why I think, for me, it's so essential that people have proper processes in place, because then there is somewhere else to go with that conversation. But if that process stops in house, then there isn't anywhere to go with it. Yeah.

Julia  

I am reads, I know it's you know, your your story. Hopefully it's also helpful for you to hear personally, as somebody with expertise and clinical experience, to interact with your story.

Ann Maree  

Yeah, I think it is extremely helpful to hear the scholarship of it all, just, you know, even doing the studies that you've done or thinking about doing, I'm very intrigued, because it does so very much help frame the circumstances differently.

Julia  

Yeah, so the last bet that we had was about Ann Maree writing her impact statement and requesting it to be read to the elders, and essentially the elders shut that down, and they read her statement in a contained room with the Executive Session. But when it was read, there was mockery and there was deceit. And so I think it's interesting talking about how a narrative gets rewritten, and the story when there is somebody who is maybe a whistleblower, I don't love that term, but somebody who comes forward naming harm, usually the deepest level of harm is that exit that we talked about before, the loss of voice, but then further the weaponization of turning the story into something else. So wondering if you could speak to to any of those?

Lisa  

Yeah. I mean, I think one of the things that came out of the disclosure research was people talking to us about the fact that when they came to disclose what had happened to them, often they were met with anger, or they were met with silencing. That silencing so we asked people to choose images that represented their experiences, and we had two images that were actually exactly the same, which was stone walls. We had an image that somebody constructed with kind of tape over their mouth that just said silence. We had the silencing was huge. And so that kind of response of of not listening was really, really common for people when they came to talk about what had happened to them. And sometimes there was, as I said before, there was a defending of the institution. Sometimes people felt like they were defending God by saying, you know, don't, don't bring this up, because you're going to cause trouble. In my PhD research, I remember one of the people saying, We don't want the world to think that the church that preaches love can't live out, so we just leave silently. So there's, there's that real thing about so I think, I think one of the the the other things that we see is that often when people leave, one of the things on the kind of wheel of impact is personal discredit, which is that they are talked about negatively, or that they are their their their experiences reframed. And that is really powerful, because if you can discredit the story, you discredit the individual, and then you don't listen to the experience that is being shared. And so then that effectively, in a terms of a kind of psychological perspective, you keep the system safe because you discredited the individual. And so it is a really common experience, but what it also does to the individual is it's, it's damaging to the individual to be discredited, and then that that that impact on self and identity and distrust is is emphasized because, because it's, it's, it's not only about what happened in the experience. It's about the way you've tried to give voice to what has happened that has been silenced and and so when we did the disclosure research, some people said to us their disclosure was more traumatic because it was because it wasn't believed, it wasn't listened to, and it was met with, sometimes apathy, sometimes Ann, sometimes defensiveness, and, as I said, lots of missed opportunities for actually making something happen. So I think all of those things are there, and the impact on the individual is huge, because by the time you come and we learnt this through the disclosure. You know, disclosure is, is, is really difficult. And by the time you it's emotionally costly, by the time you come to do that, that's that has taken you a lot of thought. So, Ann, and it's, it's a really vulnerable we've got, we've got some pictures in the research that we did, and one person has got the has given us a picture of keys to a house, and it's a picture of the keys being handed over and said, it's like you're handing over the keys to your house. Once you come to share your story, that's the vulnerability of coming to disclose. So when you come to disclose, but then what happens to your account is that it's changed or you're disc. Edited then, then there is a huge psychological impact of that. So we really need to what. We need these processes and procedures that I've talked about, but we also need to learn how to respond well to people when they have these experiences, and how to respond well to disclosures of harm. That's so key. Because, as I said, some people said, you know, the disclosure was more traumatic. In fact, one of the quotes says the disclosure was the trauma.

Ann Maree  

That's very, very much true for our experience here, always, always, they say, yeah, it's worse than the original abuse. If there was an original abuse, they say it's worse

Julia  

the secondary trauma? Yeah, would you say that of your own experience? Ann Maree,

Ann Maree  

it got progressively worse. Yeah. I'm kind of walking through it in my mind as Lisa's talking and I'm thinking about, yeah, I would have said the first situation was abusive in my mind, until the second one happened, and then it took me probably years to realize that the second one was more abusive than the first one and and because it was more personal, it was directed towards me in particular, not just the situation that the impetus, I guess, of of what I reported. So I don't know if that made

Lisa  

sense, but it does, because in our work, we found that that personal discrediting, where people are talked about on a personal level, is really psychological, because it is, it is about you as an individual at that you know. So it does make a huge amount of sense. And I think in their disclosure research, we really learned powerfully, you know, both the impact of being responded to really well, and what that does to somebody, you know, the how that builds somebody, and the impact of not being responded to well, and how that damages people. And we really saw that strongly in that research is, yeah, I can we've got some films from that research I can share, but the images that people chose were just so powerful in terms of what it feels like. And there's one that stuck with me where there's somebody who's there's an image with just a mouse and a finger over the lips, sort of, but the person is invisible. And they said, that's how you feel, that you you. So I think, I think it absolutely resonates with the the importance of responding well and for those working in therapy and support to understand the the impact that abuse and harm have, and then the impact that might then be on top of that, where that person has come to try to talk to somebody about what has happened To them, and that might have happened ahead of therapy, where, if they've been dismissed or disbelieved at that point, that is like it is a secondary trauma.

Julia  

It's so beautiful to be able to incorporate imagery and artwork into the healing process, because there are some things that words just don't do justice for. Words fell short.

Lisa  

And I think the images are, they're really powerful. You know, an image of a lighthouse, and there's waves crashing over it, and they called it, I am the lighthouse. And they said, I was saying it's dangerous here, but they were just saying, shut up. We don't want to listen to what you've got to say. It's very powerful. It's been, I mean, all of the research has been an immense privilege, and I feel a responsibility to share it. And I think the disclosure research was also one of those pieces of work where we thought we really have to do something with this to make sure that people can learn from from what people have experienced. I see

Julia  

why it stays with you, those images, staying with you. People's stories, stay with you. I hear so much passion for the work that you do. I'm immensely grateful for it. I'm personally grateful for it, professionally grateful for it. We've taken up enough of your time today.

Lisa  

Thank you so much. Ann Maree as well.

Ann Maree  

There was looking forward to this. So thank you. Continue work. Yep, yes,

Lisa  

bless you in the work that you do. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Ann Maree  

Safe to hope is made possible by donors who believe faithfulness means protecting survivors and honoring the dignity of their stories. Their support allows us to remain independent trauma specialized and committed to truth telling without pressure or performance. We are deeply grateful to our donors for their partnership.

Ann Maree  

If this conversation stirred something for you. Please know you do not have to carry it along. Support resources are listed in the show notes, and you're welcome to reach out in the ways that feel safest for you. Safe to hope is a production of help her. You. Our executive producer is Ann Maree goudzwaard.