Pre-order the Holy Hurt Book!
Understand what happened and how you can heal your spiritual trauma
Pre-order the
Holy Hurt Book!
Clinically informed
Compassionate
ComprehensiveIt really happened. This book affirms and names what you’ve been trying to make sense of for years.
When you read Holy Hurt, you will truly understand how spiritual trauma has impacted you and our communities at large.
Through a unique blend of clinical insights, research findings, and authentic stories, you’ll find your religious trauma validated and receive practical paths to find healing.
This book is for you if you’re...
- Processing your own spiritual trauma
- A mental health professional working with religious/spiritual trauma
- A religious leader seeking to create safer communities
- Interested in preventing institutional abuse
Hear why Dr. Hillary McBride wrote this book for you
Get the Holy Hurt Recovery Resources
When you pre-order Holy Hurt by April 14th, you can download Dr. Hillary McBride’s Recovery Resources, which include:
- Two meditations you can use to help you feel grounded and held.
- A reading group guide because so much healing happens in community. This guide will help you host a book club, lead a class, or work with clients as they read the book.
- An embodiment practices guide to help you connect with your body.
- Coloring pages you can print out and use to soothe after reading.
- A 40% discount on The Wisdom of Your Body and Practices of Embodied Living for additional healing.
To receive these resources, submit your name, email, and the receipt number (or retailer name) for your book purchase in the form below, and we’ll send you the download link.
“I expected to feel understood when reading Holy Hurt, but I did not expect to be so thoroughly diagnosed beyond even my own self-awareness that I gently put the book down and made an appointment with my counselor. This particular sentence, ‘We stoke in people an inner critic and tell them it’s the voice of God,’ healed two decades of pain and confusion for me. This will be a source of profound spiritual nurture for essentially everyone I know.”
“None of us are self-made and self-healed, and Hillary McBride brings many needed voices to an open table for help with mending, including her own valuable experience and gentle expertise. There is really no hurt like spiritual trauma, and McBride ‘un-haunts the house,’ inviting us into a delicate and deliberate healing that is never easy but is made possible by this communal gathering of supportive voices.”
Did you know there’s a Holy/Hurt podcast?
Hillary partnered with Sanctuary Mental Health Ministries (shout out to Dan and Leslie and their entire team) to create the podcast which led to the creation of the book you’ll have in your hands. You can listen to it now wherever you listen to podcasts.
How Holy Hurt Has Helped
"So grateful for this podcast—I’ve done a lot of therapy around spiritual trauma, and still, every episode has lead to a realization that is meaningful, eye-opening, and deeply validating. Highly recommend!"
"Not only did I learn new things and receive confirmation that serving folks wrestling with these issues is what I want to do with the rest of my life, I was also able to continue some of my own processing and healing with the skillful and masterful guidance of Doc McBride!"
"This podcast is a landmark education about spiritual and religious trauma. May this be the beginning of many fruitful efforts to bring healing to this site of devastation. Thank you Dr. McBride and Sanctuary Mental Health."
"This is so helpful, it puts the words and healing practices to what I’ve been feeling and struggling with for over a decade. Thank you Hillary for your wisdom and experience and for sharing it with us."
"I’m listening to this podcast having “aha” moments, feeling seen, feeling a knowing deep inside my body, and feeling hope. I highly recommend!"
About Dr. Hillary McBride
Hillary McBride is a registered psychologist and an award-winning researcher. She is the author of the best-selling book The Wisdom Of Your Body, and the award winning podcast Other People’s Problems and Holy/Hurt podcasts, both featured in The New York Times and Wall Street Journal as essential listening.
Since her days as co-host on the wildly influential Liturgists Podcast, she has been trusted across the globe for conversations about embodiment, mental health and spirituality, and has been named a pioneering voice in the field of religious and spiritual trauma. She is a sought after speaker and retreat leader across the globe, teaching about spiritual trauma and creating healing spaces from pews to the boardroom.
FAQs
The Holy Hurt Podcast was an important influence on the work of the Holy Hurt Book. If you heard the podcast, you might recognize some of the themes, ideas, contributors, or stories, however the book is a more refined, organized, and updated version of that material. Since Sanctuary first produced Holy Hurt, I have grown in my understanding of these ideas and what the journey of healing could or might look like and what might help us on that path- I have taken what I've learned and added it to the book with the hope that whether you are new to the material or heard it first on the podcast, that there is something meaningful for you to engage with.
In the writing of this book it was important to ensure readers that there are no surprise religious maneuvers waiting for you, no secret altar calls, no pressure to reclaim a faith that hurt you, and no language to over-spiritualize your pain. The book is written with survivors of spiritual trauma in mind, from the perspective of a trauma psychologist. While sharing about experiences that have impacted me personally, and including experiences and stories from others who have experienced spiritual trauma in religious contexts, references to religious material are narrative in nature and meant to share about people's lived experiences of what harmed them.
Unlike many other resources about religious trauma or spiritual trauma in religious contexts, this book will hold a nuanced perspective on experiences of religion and religious identity. Instead of making claims that all religion is bad, or that one religion is right, the book is meant to help the reader understand trauma, as it is lived and known by those who experience it. My hope is to create a hospitable experience for any reader, to help them connect with their own story compassionately and in an embodied way. When we can be connected to ourselves in a holistic way, turning towards our pain and the pain of others, I believe we can more fully and wholeheartedly engage with the religious practices and community we hold dear.
I am not currently accepting new patients, and my waitlist is full. However, I do run and supervise ketamine assisted- group therapy and train clinicians in psychadelic assisted psychotherapy through Katalyst Mental health (katalystmentalhealth.com) and I also supervise clinicians at Repose Therapy (reposetherapy.com).
Holy Hurt is a love letter to you that took
8 years to arrive.
I cannot wait for you to have it in your hands on April 15th.
Wherever you are from and whatever you have been through, this book is written to help make sense of why there is so much pain, and what we can do to mend.