Religious Trauma & The LGBTQIA+ Community - $179
Working with religious trauma is complex enough. Add LGBTQIA+ identities into the mix, and suddenly many practitioners find themselves feeling underprepared, unsure of language, or quietly worried about getting it wrong.
This 2-hour self-paced practitioner training is designed to bridge that gap.
It offers a grounded, trauma-focused exploration of how religious harm uniquely impacts LGBTQIA+ people. Not just at the level of belief systems, but in identity formation, nervous system responses, relationships, spirituality, and the therapy room itself. This training goes beyond definitions and theory and focuses on how these experiences actually show up in clients’ bodies, stories, defences, grief, and sense of self.
You don’t need to be an expert in religious trauma or LGBTQIA+ identities to start. This is about building understanding, confidence, and practical insight, so you can sit with clients more safely, more competently, and with far less uncertainty.
Ultimately, this training exists because too many LGBTQIA+ clients have been harmed in spaces that claimed to care for their souls. Many practitioners want to do better, but haven’t been given the tools. If you want to work at this intersection with more clarity, confidence, and care, this training was created for you.
Why this matters
Many LGBTQIA+ clients with religious backgrounds don’t present saying, “I have religious trauma.” They present with anxiety, shame, attachment wounds, grief, identity confusion, chronic self-doubt, or a fractured relationship with meaning and belonging.
We need to understand the religious context they’re coming from and the way queerphobia is embedded in theology, doctrine, and community. So we can minimise risk around unintentionally dismissing their experiences, mislabelling their responses, or pushing interventions that replicate harm.
This intersection matters because:
- Religious trauma often targets identity, not just behaviour
- LGBTQIA+ clients may still hold faith, spirituality, or longing for meaning alongside deep harm.
- Conversion ideology and practices don’t always look dramatic or formal. They’re often they’re subtle, relational, and internalised
- Shame, fear of punishment, and self-surveillance can be deeply ingrained and invisible in the room
- Safety, autonomy, and choice have often been systematically removed, including in therapeutic and pastoral spaces
This training helps you recognise these layers so that when clients speak or struggle to speak, you know what you’re hearing, what you’re seeing, and what needs care rather than correction.
What’s included in the training
This 2-hour self-paced training gives you:
- A clear, nuanced understanding of key LGBTQIA+ and religious trauma terms. So you can confidently follow client language, avoid common missteps, and reduce the risk of unintentionally invalidating lived experience in the room.
- A deep dive into conversion ideology and practices. So you can recognise harm even when it doesn’t look like “formal conversion therapy,” and understand how these ideologies become internalised, relational, and clinically significant.
- A grounded overview of what it is like to be LGBTQIA+ in religious spaces. So you can contextualise client distress within systemic patterns rather than pathologising individual responses.
- An expanded exploration of common sources of religious trauma for LGBTQIA+ individuals. So you can better identify where shame, fear, grief, and self-surveillance originate, even when clients don’t name religion as the problem.
- Insight into the mental health, wellbeing, relational, and spiritual impacts of this trauma. So you can make more accurate clinical formulations and respond with interventions that don’t replicate control, punishment, or bypassing.
- Clear examples of how religious trauma shows up in therapy. So you can recognise it beneath presenting issues like anxiety, attachment difficulties, people-pleasing, identity confusion, or chronic self-doubt.
- An exploration of the societal and cultural forces that compound religious harm. So you understand how stigma, misinformation, and systemic discrimination continue to affect clients long after they leave religious spaces.
- A trauma-informed framework centred on safety and competency. So you can actively create environments where LGBTQIA+ clients with religious trauma feel believed, respected, and in control of their own pace and choices.
- Practical, implementable takeaways across inclusivity, education, support, and advocacy. So you leave with concrete actions you can apply immediately in your practice, workplace, or organisation.
This training is designed to help you move from uncertain and careful to informed, grounded, and intentional when working at this intersection without needing to already “know it all.”
Who this training is for
This training is for practitioners who:
- Already work with trauma and want deeper understanding of religious trauma
- Support LGBTQIA+ clients and want to practice more confidently and affirmingly
- Feel unsure navigating conversations about faith, spirituality, or religious harm
- Have noticed themes of shame, fear, identity conflict, or grief tied to religion
- Want practical insight rather than just theory
- Are committed to trauma-informed, ethical, and affirming practice
This includes therapists, counsellors, psychologists, social workers, coaches, pastoral carers, and other helping professionals.
You don’t need to be LGBTQIA+ yourself. You don’t need to have lived experience of religious trauma. What you do need is curiosity, humility, and a willingness to reflect on how systems of belief and power shape the people you work with.
Bonuses Included
On top of the core training, you’ll receive three bonus resources to deepen your understanding:
1. Understanding the Breadth of the LGBTQIA+ Community (PDF)
This bonus PDF supports practitioners to deepen their understanding of LGBTQIA+ identities beyond acronyms and surface-level knowledge.
It explores the diversity within the community, evolving language, common misconceptions, and the ways identity can be fluid, contextual, and shaped by culture and religion. This resource is particularly helpful if you’ve ever felt unsure about terminology, worried about offending, or aware that your knowledge hasn’t quite kept pace with your practice. You’ll want this because confident, respectful language builds safety and safety is foundational for trauma work.
2. Reflective Workbook – Integrating Spirituality & Identity (PDF)
This reflective workbook is designed to be used with clients who are navigating the integration of their spirituality and LGBTQIA+ identity. Whether they are holding onto faith, redefining it, or letting it go entirely. It offers gentle prompts and structured reflections that centre autonomy, choice, and self-trust, rather than forcing resolution or direction. It can be used collaboratively in session or sections can be offered as a between-session resource.
This bonus supports work that is often slow, tender, and deeply personal. Helping clients make sense of who they are without recreating pressure, shame, or spiritual bypassing.
3. eBook: A Shattered Sanctuary: From Fellowship to Freedom.
A raw, honest account of my personal journey through religious trauma, including indoctrination, coercion, and leaving a high-control faith community. Provides human insight into experiences clients may struggle to articulate.
Each bonus is included to give you both conceptual understanding and human insight. So you can connect with clients, interpret experiences accurately, and feel confident in sessions.
Professional Development & OPD Points
Complete the webinar and quiz to receive a certificate of completion. This counts for 3 OPD points with the Australian Counselling Association (ACA) as an ‘Online Training Program’. You may also be able to claim points with other professional bodies, it’s worth checking directly with your organisation.