Understanding Spiritual Abuse

Published on 14th of November 2025

Faith and spirituality can offer strength, comfort, and belonging, but when misused, they can also become tools of harm. Spiritual abuse occurs when power and control are exercised through someone’s beliefs, faith practices, or cultural traditions, leaving lasting emotional and psychological impacts.

Though often less visible than physical violence, it can deeply affect a person’s identity, autonomy, and connection to community. By exploring what spiritual abuse looks like, why it matters, and how it fits within the broader context of coercive control, we can begin to bring this often-overlooked form of abuse into the light.

What Is Spiritual Abuse?

Spiritual abuse (sometimes called religious abuse) refers to behaviours that demean, control, or restrict someone’s spiritual or religious beliefs, practices, or community connections.

It can include:

• Ridiculing or belittling someone’s beliefs or cultural practices
• Preventing them from participating in religious ceremonies, gatherings, or practices
• Forcing or pressuring them to adopt beliefs they don’t consent to
• Manipulating religious teachings or cultural traditions to justify or excuse violence or control
  Spiritual abuse is often part of a broader pattern of coercive control - using faith or belief systems as another lever of power and control in relationships.

What Do the Numbers Tell Us?

One challenge with spiritual abuse is that national data on prevalence is limited, likely because it overlaps with emotional and psychological abuse and is less overt.

However:

• A 2024 policy-and-practice paper from @AIFS notes that spiritual/religious abuse is “a lesser-known type of violence in the context of intimate partner violence” but is associated with emotional, psychological and trauma-related harm.
• Spiritual and cultural abuse are now explicitly recognised in legal and DFV frameworks as part of the spectrum of violence.
• In Indigenous family violence contexts, spiritual and cultural abuse are understood as part of a full continuum of harms (from emotional, psychological, physical to cultural/spiritual).
• The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) indicates that family, domestic and sexual violence is a major national issue, and that non-physical forms of violence - like emotional, psychological, financial, spiritual - must be seen as part of coercive control.

What Does Spiritual Abuse Look Like?

Here are some examples (note - these may overlap with other forms of abuse):

• Telling someone their beliefs are “stupid,” “backwards” or “wrong”
• Publicly shaming or mocking their cultural/spiritual practices
• Preventing them or their children from attending religious services, ceremonies, or spiritual gatherings
• Forcing them to adopt or abide by beliefs or doctrines against their will
• Using religious texts or leaders to justify controlling behaviour, silence dissent or enforce obedience
• Blaming them with religious rhetoric (e.g. “God will punish you if you leave”)
• Prohibiting access to religious or spiritual community, elders, or cultural support networks
• Interfering with spiritual identity or cultural traditions, especially for Indigenous or First Nations people
• Condemning them if they seek secular or non-religious support or counselling.

These behaviours, especially when repeated, can erode a person’s autonomy, faith, identity, and capacity to seek safety.

Why This Matters

Spiritual abuse is not just about religion, it is also about identity, belonging, autonomy and psychological safety.

• Faith and spirituality often provide people with meaning, connection, resilience, and community. Undermining it can cause deep harm.
• Spiritual abuse can isolate someone from their support networks, such as the community, faith groups, elders, or cultural systems that might otherwise support them. It increases dependence on the abuser.
• Over time, it contributes to self-doubt, shame, identity confusion, depression, anxiety, trauma.
• In the context of coercive control, spiritual abuse can be a powerful tool to trap someone in an unsafe relationship: by making them believe they must stay for religious reasons, or that challenging them is a ‘sin’ or an act of betrayal.
• Because spiritual abuse is less visible or less recognised, those who experience it may hesitate to name it or seek help, reinforcing isolation.

National Context & Action

• The National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children (2022–2032) emphasises non-physical forms of violence, including spiritual abuse, as central to coercive control.
• Some Domestic and Family Violence policies have begun to explicitly include cultural and spiritual abuse in their definitions of family violence.
• 1800RESPECT lists spiritual abuse as a recognised form of abuse and provides definitions, support, and safety planning resources.
• The Australian Institute of Family Studies suggests that practitioners should routinely ask about spirituality, belief and religious practices when assessing for intimate partner violence - so these matters are not left invisible.
• Frontline and community services should build cultural and spiritual competence in their responses, especially for people from culturally and linguistically diverse communities and First Nations peoples.

Want to Learn More?

Spiritual abuse is a serious but often hidden form of harm, yet by naming it, we can begin to interrupt its cycle.

If you work in health, community services, faith, or frontline sectors, consider training or resources that help you recognise and respond to spiritual abuse as part of domestic and family violence.

Let’s ensure spiritual abuse is seen, validated, and met with safety and support - because no one should have their beliefs weaponised against them.

For direct support in Australia, 1800RESPECT is available 24/7 for confidential counselling, information and referrals.

Call 1800 737 732
Text 0458 737 732
Visit 1800respect.org.au for online chat and video call services.

Sources:

• 1800RESPECT – Spiritual abuse
• Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS) – Understanding spiritual and religious abuse in the context of intimate relationships
• Women’s Legal Service Tasmania – Cultural and Spiritual Abuse (2021)
• Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) – Family, domestic and sexual violence in Australia
• AIHW – Indigenous domestic and family violence, mental health and suicide
• National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022–2032
• Domestic and Family Violence Bench Book – Cultural and spiritual abuse
• 1800RESPECT – CALD inclusive practice