Leaving the Fold

Winell grew up the daughter of a missionary, had a genuine born-again experience, and then spent the next phase of her life figuring out what it cost her — before spending twenty-eight years as a psychologist helping others do the same. She coined the term Religious Trauma Syndrome to name what happens to people who leave authoritarian religion: the grief, the identity crisis, the loss of community, the shame, the specific disorientation of having your entire framework for meaning suddenly removed. This is the only self-help psychology book written specifically for people recovering from toxic religion — not those questioning their faith while remaining comfortable, but those who have left or are leaving and need concrete tools for the specific work of rebuilding a self that was organized entirely around beliefs you no longer hold. The recovery and rebuilding book in the coercive control bundle: Combating Cult Mind Control names the mechanism by which groups capture people's reality, Leaving the Fold shows what it takes to reclaim it. Essential for anyone doing deconstruction work — from fundamentalist Christianity specifically or from any authoritarian religious structure — and for the therapists, family members, and community organizers who support them.