In my master's thesis, I study spiritual abuse and how this form of abuse is experienced by its victim. In the theoretical section, I explain what the concept of spiritual abuse means. I explore how social work, with its interdisciplinary nature, can co-create solutions with victims of spiritual abuse. I am interested in the relationship between social work and spirituality, and the exploration of the religious experiences of clients. At the same time, I am interested in the characteristics of a healthy community and the characteristics of a harmful, spiritually abusive community or cult. How mentally healthy are the victims of spiritual abuse if they are in an abusive environment? The research is based on the aspects of the systemic-ecological model of social work, the social-constructivist model of social work, and the radical model of social work. Within the framework of risk assessment, I am interested in the gains of victims of spiritual abuse. I also consider sexual abuse as spiritual abuse, which can be part of spiritual abuse, but this is not necessarily the case. I compare social work with clients who are addicted to various substances with social work that can be done with victims of spiritual abuse who may be addicted to religion. I analyse the specific roles of social work in working with victims of spiritual abuse. Cults and their leaders abuse their power and exercise mind control and coercive control over their members, which I explain, while also discussing the possibilities of deprogramming cult members. Among other things, I also discuss psychotherapy as a potentially spiritually abusive practice. In the empirical section, I present the findings of a study I conducted with a victim of spiritual abuse. The study is a qualitative, exploratory, singular case study of simple units. I had a semi-structured, non-standardised interview with guides. This is the first Slovenian study in this area within social work. The questions were related to the victim's story of spiritual abuse, the consequences of spiritual abuse, the victim's attitude towards spiritual practices, the victim's past and current relationships with family and other people, spiritual abuse as sexual abuse, intimidation of the victim, her treatment in state institutions, and so on. I conclude that victims of spiritual abuse need appropriate professional treatment in state bodies, and they need to be believed, which is not yet an established practice in Slovenia, also due to ignorance of spiritual abuse and stigmatisation, discrimination, and blaming of victims, saying that they are to blame for the abuse. This can retraumatize them. Therefore, the policies of state bodies need to be changed to protect victims more appropriately. Cults use mind control techniques and coercive control, which institutions and professionals are not so familiar with, so more awareness needs to be raised about this issue. I realise that any person can be spiritually abused, regardless of their past or vulnerability. It would be appropriate to establish a non-governmental organisation to help victims of spiritual abuse, as is already happening abroad. After leaving, victims should be given a decent transition from an authoritarian community to a free life based on a personal plan, but they often do not have support and are at risk and isolated, with psychological problems. Victims must participate in co-creating solutions for themselves, which they were not used to in cults. This way, they can develop more autonomy and exercise more personal will. Spiritual abuse is not talked about enough in Slovenia, so it would be appropriate for social workers and researchers to devote more attention to this issue, focusing on working with traumatised people and learning deprogramming techniques. It would also be useful to investigate potentially abusive communities in the field through action research or to increase the employment of social workers in religious institutions.
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