Ep. 205 - Dr. Paul Swindle "Religious Trauma"
The Deconstructionists
John Williamson
4.4 • 823 Ratings
🗓️ 18 August 2025
⏱️ 65 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
📌 Episode Summary:
In this deeply insightful episode, John sits down with Dr. Paula Swindle—a licensed therapist and professor who has spent a career studying religious trauma —to unpack the concept of spiritual bypass, the psychological consequences of religious trauma, and the subtle ways churches often silence dissent.
Dr. Swindle brings decades of experience working at the intersection of psychology and faith, offering a compassionate and deeply informed perspective for anyone trying to untangle their religious experience from their identity and healing journey. If you’ve ever been told to “just forgive and move on,” this conversation is for you.
Originally recorded for Spoiled Fruit: Faith & Power, this interview felt too important not to share here as well. For the full series: www.spoiledfruitpodcast.com
🔑 Topics Covered:
• What is spiritual bypass and how does it show up in churches?
• Why “positive vibes only” culture can be harmful in religious spaces
• The long-term impact of suppressing anger, grief, and doubt
• How faith communities often retraumatize survivors of abuse
• Practical ways to reclaim your story and find safe support
📚 Recommended Resources:
• Our boy Dan's podcast: You Have Permission: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/when-religion-hurts-you-229/id1448000113?i=1000640316552
🗣️ Join the Conversation:
Have you experienced spiritual bypass or church-related trauma? We’d love to hear your story. Tag us on social media or reach out privately.
#DeconstructionistsPodcast #SpiritualBypass #ChurchTrauma #ReligiousRecovery #FaithAndHealing
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Deconstructionist podcast. |
| 0:14.0 | I'm your host, John Williamson, and we're back with sort of a new episode. |
| 0:18.4 | This is one that I actually aired originally on my investigative podcast that I just finished releasing spoiled fruit, faith, and power. I felt like it was important to have a religious trauma expert on the show based on the fact that so much of it was about spiritual trauma. And so I found Dr. Paula Swindle, and the interview was just so incredible |
| 0:39.9 | that I felt like it would be very useful to share here with the deconstructionist audience, |
| 0:44.8 | especially because so many of you over the years have reached out to me about your own spiritual |
| 0:50.1 | trauma. And so we talk a lot about different things like spiritual bypass and just a lot of |
| 0:56.5 | techniques for healing. And she is definitely the expert. She spent a lot of time as a clinician |
| 1:03.1 | out in the field and kept coming across people who came to her with some sort of religious trauma. |
| 1:09.5 | And she was so fascinated by it and so wanting to help |
| 1:13.0 | that she actually went back to school and got her PhD and now teaches other future therapists |
| 1:18.3 | on how to best help people who have religious or spiritual trauma. So hopefully you guys enjoy |
| 1:25.3 | this. Obviously, it is about the topic that I covered on spoiled fruit, faith, |
| 1:31.4 | and power, which is about the vineyard movement and some larger systemic issues that, you know, |
| 1:37.9 | we cover there that led to a couple different abuse scandals. |
| 1:42.6 | And so obviously specific to that, but obviously also applicable to anyone's spiritual |
| 1:50.8 | trauma. |
| 1:51.9 | So hopefully this is helpful. |
| 1:53.3 | Hopefully you enjoy it. |
| 1:54.7 | Without further ado, they give you Dr. Paula freaking swindle. |
| 1:58.9 | Does he know that I'm alive? Dr. Paula, freaking Swindle. |
| 2:07.3 | All right, welcome to the podcast. |
| 2:10.2 | Thank you for coming on, Dr. Paula Swindle. |
... |
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