If you adopted a traumatized child, be very careful about the messages that your traumatized adopted child receives from your religious organization about his experiences. While there are some very wonderful church folks out there who will be supportive, there is also a lot of ignorance in some churches. You need to protect your traumatized adopted child from that ignorance.

Let me be clear that I do not mean to bash all religious organizations. In fact, my own therapist, who is wonderful, works for a Methodist Counseling Center. He is an experienced therapist with a psychology degree, so he had the qualifications to provide me with psychotherapy to help me work through my trauma issues arising from a history of severe child abuse.

That being said, I have also come across numerous “counselors” within organized religions who have no business counseling anyone about the aftereffects of trauma. For example, when my then-teenage sister confided in a “Christian counselor” about being sexually abused as a younger child, the counselor told her to “write all of her sins” (including the “sin” of being sexually abused) onto a piece of paper and then burn it. The fact that this did not “cure” my sister of her trauma issues became proof that she was “demonized.”

That is hardly constructive therapy for a trauma survivor.

I wish this woman was the only ignorant quack out there, but, alas, she is not. I know several people who have received terrible advice from church folks about their trauma history, being told that they were “demonized.” The worst is saved for those with dissociative identity disorder (DID) (formerly known as multiple personality disorder). People are told that alter parts are “of the devil” when those parts are actually simply a compartmentalized part of the person.

People who have suffered trauma already feel badly enough about themselves without having other people tell them that they have “demons” living inside of their bodies. If adults get upset about this kind of thing, just imagine how much more upsetting these messages are for children with a more limited life experience.

If you are parenting a traumatized adopted child and are involved in any form of organized religion, make sure you know what people are telling your child about his trauma history. Don’t let them re-traumatize your child with their nonsense about flashbacks = demon possession.

Related Topic:

Choosing a Therapist after Child Abuse (Warning about "Christian" counselors)

Photo credit: Lynda Bernhardt