Purity Culture and Religious Patriarchy: Counseling Considerations for Survivors of Sex and Gender-Based Religious Abuse

About this training

The systemic factors of purity culture and religious patriarchy inflict a complex web of suppression and trauma that are difficult to unpack. Women and men suffer unique impacts related to identity, sexuality, gender roles, body autonomy, and more. These experiences can lead to symptoms ranging from sexual pain to identity confusion. This clinical training explores ways to address these nuanced topics in therapy while meeting your clients where they are. It will include useful clinical tools for assessing symptoms, raising awareness, and creating treatment goals that are tailored to client experiences in patriarchal religious systems. Facilitator, Anna Clark Miller, takes a religiously neutral approach that offers both clients and clinicians the freedom to seek healing on their own terms. LEARNING OBJECTIVES 1) Participants will gain an understanding of the complex layers of control and abuse involved in purity culture and religious patriarchy. 2) Participants will be equipped with assessment questions for evaluating if and how their clients have been impacted by these systems. 3) Participants will learn practical treatment goals and therapeutic interventions for treating survivors of purity culture and religious patriarchy.