According to theologian and psychologist Karen McClintock, trauma prompts three key questions about faith. Psychologist Bessel van der Kolk explains that traumatic events overwhelm a person, preventing them from integrating the experience into their life narrative. In spirituality, trauma acts as a 'hand grenade', disrupting meaning-making and a sense of belonging in the universe.
Survivors face a choice: develop a new framework for understanding the world, or live with existential despair. Author Jackie Bailey describes her own journey, recalling her seven-year-old self struggling to reconcile her sister's cancer with a loving God. Her conclusion that God did not exist shaped the next 40 years of her life.
Bailey now views her departure from religion through the lens of childhood trauma. Psychologist Judith Herman notes that survivors must become 'theologian, philosopher, and jurist' to articulate the values destroyed by trauma. The principles of trauma-informed care—safety, trust, choice, collaboration, empowerment—include spiritual safety, which Bailey says she never felt as a child.
Not all trauma breaks faith; for some, it deepens it. Former University of Sydney vice-chancellor Michael Spence, after losing his wife to cancer, maintained a list of ways God still looked out for him. Bailey, however, has found a position closer to Sam Harris than Richard Dawkins, open to mystery but not to a deity. She concludes that while she does not need to forgive a god, she can learn to forgive herself.
