What Makes Spiritual Trauma Distinct

This is our unabridged interview with Hillary McBride.

At sixteen, Lee C. Camp drove five miles over the speed limit and was seized by terror. In his mind, if he died breaking the law, he was going to hell. That childhood fear, shaped by a theology steeped in shame and judgment, is the kind of spiritual residue clinical psychologist Hillary McBride sees in her work every day.

Clinical psychologist and researcher Hillary McBride joins Lee C. Camp to explore spiritual trauma: how religious ideas, communities, and leaders can wound our deepest sense of self — and how healing becomes possible through embodiment, grief, and honest meaning-making. Drawing from neuroscience, trauma therapy, and her book Holy Hurt: Understanding Spiritual Trauma and the Process of Healing, Hillary helps us name religious gaslighting, purity culture, and fear-based images of God while offering a path toward authentic human flourishing and more compassionate faith.

Key Ideas:

• How Hillary defines trauma as “too much, too fast, too soon” combined with “not enough of what we needed” — and what makes spiritual trauma uniquely complex, especially in high-control religious environments that normalize harm and call it “God’s will.”

• The dynamics of spiritual gaslighting: when leaders tell you your heart is deceitful, you can’t trust your own experience, and they alone can interpret God for you — often reinforced with images of hell and eternal punishment as tools of control.

• How trauma fragments our sense of connection — to our bodies, to others, to the earth, and to God — and why embodiment, nervous system awareness, and somatic practices are essential for healing, not just “right beliefs” or spiritual practices that bypass our pain.

• Why deep therapeutic work is not self-indulgent but a form of love: as we heal perfectionism, shame, and spiritual wounds, we become more able to live with purpose, practice courage and compassion, and participate in the healing of our communities and culture.

For more conversations like this, subscribe to No Small Endeavor.

⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript⁠ for abridged episode with Hillary McBride⁠

Thank you to our sponsors:

Ka’Chava: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://kachava.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use code NSE for 15% off your next order

Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BollAndBranch.com/NSE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

AquaTru: Go to  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠AquaTru.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use promo code NSE

Piper and Leaf: Get a 10% off discount to the Advent Calendar by using my code 'NSE' at ⁠⁠⁠piperandleaf.com⁠⁠⁠

Nations U: Use code ENDEAVOR50 when you visit ⁠⁠Nationsu.edu/endeavor⁠⁠

CTA: Please donate today at ⁠MercyShips.org/podcast⁠

Omaha Steaks: Visit ⁠OmahaSteaks.com⁠ for 50% off sitewide during their Sizzle All the Way Sale. And for an extra $35 off, use promo code FUN at checkout.

⁠⁠⁠Join NSE+⁠⁠⁠ — our subscriber-only community — for ad-free listening, member-only bonus content, and early access to live show tickets. Your membership helps make No Small Endeavor sustainable.

No Small Endeavor: An award-winning podcast that asks what it means to live a good life. Through conversations with leading thinkers across theology, philosophy, psychology, politics, and the social sciences, we explore human flourishing, meaning and purpose, faith and culture, science and religion, virtue and character, community, and the practices that help shape a good life grounded in truth, beauty, and goodness.

Follow ⁠⁠⁠@nosmallendeavor⁠⁠⁠ 

Host Lee C. Camp: Lee has worked as a professor of theology & ethics for more than 25 years, teaching and writing on topics of faith & politics, inter-religious dialog, and human flourishing at the intersection of theology, moral philosophy, and social sciences. Follow ⁠⁠⁠@leeccamp ⁠

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices