Recognizing and addressing religious abuse of power

Project description

Religious (or spiritual) abuse of power has been the subject of increasing public debate in recent years, but has hardly been systematically investigated in empirical research to date. The aim of the study is to record religious power dynamics in Christian contexts in a differentiated way - especially where spiritual authority may have been abused and resulted in psychological stress. It is expressly not our intention to evaluate or publicly criticize individual congregations or denominations. Rather, this study is intended to create a scientific basis so that religious abuse of power can be better recognized in the future and addressed in pastoral care and therapeutic contexts. The present study represents a first, necessary step towards the development of a scientifically sound survey instrument.

The study is aimed at people of legal age who are currently or have previously been part of a Christian congregation, church or Christian organization. Anyone can take part, even those who have never experienced religious abuse of power, as the evaluation requires a range from "no experience of abuse" to "many experiences of abuse". Participation is anonymous, takes place online and lasts around 40-50 minutes. As a thank you, participants can request individual feedback on their personality profile and their emotion regulation skills.

Focal points of the project

• Methodologically appropriate translation of the Spiritual Harm & Abuse Scale (SHAS)
• Examination of the factor structure of the German translation
• Investigation of reliability and test-retest reliability
• Investigation of validity through correlations with variables of the relationship with God and mental health