Sacred Wounds, Second Edition: A Path to Healing from Spiritual Trauma
by Teresa Mateus
Are you feeling lost, hurt, or confused because of religious or spiritual trauma? Have you experienced spiritual abuse, systemic oppression, or the pain of having your beliefs turned against you? Are you a leader, therapist, or loved one looking to support someone through spiritual trauma?
Sacred Wounds, 2nd Edition, is your roadmap to healing. Teresa Mateus, a sensitive therapist and survivor, offers a compassionate and insightful guide to understanding and recovering from religious trauma.
What's New in This Edition?
This updated and expanded edition addresses the evolving landscape of religious trauma in today's world:
- Christian Nationalism and Religious-Political Extremism: Learn about the dangerous synchronism of political and religious zealotry and its impact on individuals and communities.
- Broader Perspectives: Gain insights from a multitude of spiritual and religious traditions, not just Christianity.
- Support for Allies: Discover a new section dedicated to providing support and allyship to survivors of spiritual trauma.
- Updated Content: Benefit from the author's evolved perspectives and embrace of practices and insights from Andean and Paqo traditions, Buddhism, Yoga, mystical Judaism and Islam, Curanderismo, and more.
- Protected Space: Discover an ethic around creating protected space for those who have been harmed to show up and feel represented, heard and seen—and a process to address when harm might still happen.
What Will You Learn?
- Identify the origins and roots of spiritual abuse and harm.
Recognize the systemic, cultural, and psychological phenomena of spiritual abuse and trauma. - Understand the symptoms of traumatic stress and PTSD in a religious or spiritual context.
- Apply the twelve-step recovery tradition to articulate a positive path forward for transformation.
- Discover hands-on applications and healing modalities to rebuild your life, heart, and soul.
- Find your own path to healing from this deeply devastating trauma.
What Others Are Saying
“So many people have been wounded by religion. So few understand the personal, emotional, and spiritual dimensions of these wounds. As a pastor and a professional therapist, Teresa Mateus is the first person I would go to for help in processing spiritual pain. Now, her gentle wisdom is available widely through Sacred Wounds. It is beautifully written and pastorally rich. Highly recommended!”
—Brian D. McLaren, author/speaker
“Sacred Wounds is an incredible tool of hope! Teresa Mateus is an amazing guide, tender and wise, and offers her own experiences, other’s powerful stories, and practical, gentle, and meaningful exercises for healing. I will be sharing it with the many people I know longing for hope after experiencing religious trauma.”
—Kathy Escobar, co-pastor of The Refuge and author of Faith Shift: Finding Your Way Forward When Everything You Believe Is Coming Apart
“Sacred Wounds is a literary liminal adventure into the holy terrain of trauma, healing, brokenness, and openness. In these pages lie a call for us to be wounded healer-warriors in a fearful, trauma-saturated culture. May it be so!”
—Anthony Smith, Postmodern Negro blog; pastor, Mission House (Salisbury, NC)
“This is the book you need if you or someone you know has survived religious trauma. A definitive guide to the origins of religious trauma, effects on the body and mind, and most importantly, how to heal..."
— Michele Rosenthal, author of Your Life After Trauma: Powerful Practices to Reclaim Your Identity
“The author speaks from both personal and professional experience, and her ideas are well grounded in academic theory. Her writing is both compassionate and full of humor. Tying healing from trauma to the twelve steps of addiction recovery is brilliant.”
—Gail Horton, MSW, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Florida Atlantic University
“Sacred Wounds is not merely an academic exposé on church abuse. It is both personal and poignant, reaching deeply into the souls of those who are still haunted by the abyss between what we expect church to be and sometimes what it is. This book offers a balm of healing that’s sacred and pure.”
—Daisy Rain Martin, author of Juxtaposed: Finding Sanctuary on the Outside and Hope Givers: Hope is Here
“Teresa Mateus looks deep within religion’s wounded shadows and, like Christ the wounded healer, finds grace and hope there... This compassionate, wise book will help many people.”
—Mark Longhurst, pastor and writer
“Teresa Mateus takes us on her own brave journey—and ultimately, intimately, into ourselves. The spiritual traumas are most sacred. No more averting our eyes. We are gently challenged to look, see, sense. Teresa teaches us to remember and trust our instincts once again. She gives us hands-on applications we can use in our lives. Her book is our guide. Take this pilgrimage with her and emerge transformed.”
—Sharon Daugherty, Sexual Assault Outreach/SART co- facilitator; Palm Beach County Victim Services & Certified Rape Crisis Center
“If one of the definitions of trauma is ‘any experience less than nurturing,’ then life on this planet is daunting, risky business for us frail humans. While the Church can be an agent to bring healing to that trauma, more often than not our religious experiences end up less than nurturing and typically at the hands of well-meaning yet misguided folks. Teresa Mateus shares with brutal and refreshing honesty her journey in spiritual healing... I’m grateful for her voice to those inside and outside of the Church. She is a refreshing change agent who speaks from both clinical expertise and deep, personal experience.”
—Jonathan Benz, MS, CAP, ICADC, CDWF, author of The Recovery-Minded Church
“Teresa Mateus’s gentle voice of wisdom has never been more needed than it is today. With clinical expertise amplified by a personal journey from victim to survivor to victor, Teresa is the perfect wounded healer, and her words are exactly the balm that all those with sacred wounds need!”
—Reba Riley, author of Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome: A Memoir of Humor and Healing