Source: The Hidden Cost of Mormon Belief: Conditioned From Childhood Channel: Mormon Discussion Inc. Published: April 29, 2026 | Archived: May 1, 2026

Video: The Hidden Cost of Mormon Belief: Conditioned From Childhood
Channel: Mormon Discussion Inc.
Published: April 29, 2026
Duration: 1:53:49
Views: 7,139
Category: Nonprofits & Activism
Video ID: qlS4IQvRIoo

Description

What if the harm didn’t start with a crisis… but with what you were taught as a child?

In this episode of Mormonism Live, we sit down with researcher and clinician Samuel Clemens, PhD, LCSW, to unpack his groundbreaking study on religious trauma among former Latter-day Saints—particularly those who identify as sexual minorities.

This isn’t a conversation about people being “offended” or simply losing belief. It’s about something deeper.

Clemens’ research reveals that for many, the damage isn’t tied to a single moment—but to years of subtle conditioning. Messages about worthiness, identity, obedience, and belonging begin early… and often shape how individuals see themselves long before they have the language to understand who they are.

We explore:

How religious trauma develops over time—not in one event, but through repetition Why identity and morality being fused together creates lasting psychological conflict The “double bind” many experience: be authentic and risk losing everything, or conform and lose yourself The central role of family, belonging, and conditional acceptance Why leaving can feel both freeing and devastating at the same time

This is an honest, nuanced conversation about the real human impact of high-demand religious systems—and what healing can actually look like on the other side.

If you’ve ever wrestled with these questions, or you’re trying to understand someone who has, this episode offers insight that’s hard to ignore.

Support Mormonism Live: https://donorbox.org/mormonism-live

If you or someone you know is navigating religious or spiritual trauma, support and coaching resources are available at: https://awakenandthrive.org/

#MormonismLive #ReligiousTrauma #FaithTransition #ExMormon #MentalHealth #lds

To reach Sam - sclemens161@gmail.com

Transcript — YouTube panel (human-authored)

0:01 Good evening everybody. Mormonism Live. It’s Monday, sorry, Wednesday, April 29th, 2026. And uh we’re grateful for the chance to to have this conversation with you folks today. Uh for all of you who are watching live, I think you’re really going to enjoy it. Uh this will be a great conversation. So please participate in the live chat off to the side. Uh tonight’s conversation is wrapped around research that Samuel Clemens, who’s our guest tonight, uh has done in terms of the kind of programming in behaviors of the LDS church that affect us from childhood all the way through late adulthood and and what those uh what kind of effects that that we take on uh because of the behaviors of the LDS church, whether it’s trauma, whether it’s certain kinds of programming, the way that we show up in life, And so, RFM, by the way, how are you doing tonight? I’m doing great. Thank you so much.

0:54 Excellent. Excellent. So, I’m going to bring Sam on. Let me clear up the uh the the graphics here for just a second. I’ll put the names up and bring Sam on. Samuel Clemens, how are you doing today? I’m doing great. How are you? Hello. If that if that is your real name. Yes. Uh Samuel Clemens is my real name. Um I I am related to Mark Twain. Uh Samuel Clemens is his real name. Um and he is my fourth great-grandfather’s cousin if I can think back to the lineage. So it is your real name. Yes. Look at that.

1:28 Radio Free Mormon is my real name, too. There we go. Uh Sam, I wonder if you’ll start us off. Tell us your credentials. Tell us a little bit about who you are and and then tell us about what got you heading in the direction of doing this research to begin with. and then we’ll start asking some questions about what it is that you discovered uh in your work to find out more about how being a Mormon affects people at the human level. Yeah, absolutely.

1:59 So, um I I I’ll try to make a long story short, but essentially um my my study involves a lot of my own life experience. And so as I give examples from my study, I’m also going to be giving a lot of my own life examples too. Um, you know, there are kind of three points that I’m coming from um in today’s interview. One, it’s the experience that I had um in the LDS church. Uh the second uh experience comes from uh my clinical background. So I’m a licensed clinical social worker.

2:37 uh I got a graduate in um social work and then I took both lensure exams and uh ended up creating my own private practice called Clemens Creative Counseling. Uh I specialize in seeing individuals who have personality disorders uh autism, ADHD um but in particular trauma. Um, and after my bachelor’s degree, I moved to the Boisee area and actually got heavily involved in working with refugees as a community worker. And I began to see the type of trauma that refugees coming over to America experienced. And at the same time, I was internally struggling with my own demons being a part of the LDS church, you know, having served a mission um and and wanting to conform and um conform to the rules. Uh so upon this journey, I had a friend who essentially helped me realize that I need to be my true authentic self. And um this friend was able to really help me break away and leave the church. um done a lot of healing since then. But um

3:48 when I decided to get a doctorate degree, um I told my therapist what my topic was going to be for my dissertation. And my therapist really urged me to do something different that hits a little more close to home. Um I I didn’t feel like I was ready to do this topic yet. Um but I am so incredibly grateful that I did. I just like myself, you know, I want other individuals who identify as LGBTQ plus, whether they are currently active in the church or they have left the church, I want them to know that there is support, there is love. It’s hard, there’s that lost felt sense of community. It it almost feels like a double-edged sword where you’re losing a part of yourself. Um, but you also are used to this community. Um, and so I I want them to know that, you know, you may have suicidal ideiation, you may be experiencing and going through hell, but there really is courage that you can find to be able to leave the church and live your true

4:56 authentic self. And so the whole reasoning for me being a therapist and the whole reason for the topic that I chose is that I want to continue doing therapy. I also want to I want to be a full-time professor and I want to teach future graduate um social work um individuals to go out into the field be more educated on what trauma is the various types of trauma that exist so that they are able to go and help other individuals um who have experienced many of what the participants in the study have experienced myself and and hundreds thousands of other individuals.

5:35 Sam, what is the title of your dissertation? It is a long title and I have my I have my dissertation here with me. It is um exploring the perceptions of religious trauma among former members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who identify as a sexual minority. How long were you working on that from when to when? So I started my doctorate degree um I had to complete two years worth of online courses. Um, I had to complete four residencies. Once I was done with that, then I was approved to start working on my dissertation. I was assigned a chair and I went through almost two and a half years of grueling, arguing work.

6:21 And did we mention this was at Walden University in Michigan? Correct. Well, I don’t know if we have yet, but that’s where I went to school. Yeah, that’s my way of making sure we did. Yes. I uh I want to start here. Uh, I got certified last year as a trauma coach. Uh, my girlfriend and I, Teresa and I, uh, do several support groups for, uh, folks who mostly Mormon. There was one person who wasn’t, but mostly Mormon, uh, who experienced a faith crisis, trying to deconstruct it, spend some amount of time, and they still haven’t been able to make peace with it.

6:55 And so I’m I’m at least uh on some level aware of various forms of trauma and and what best serves people to try to help them to process that and to move on to a healthy second half of life. But what I find often when I’m talking in this arena, when I’m saying something online, people who are trying to defend the church make such a small deal out of traumas as if you really need a capital T trauma. Your your mom needs to die of cancer. your dad needs to die in a car accident. You need to have something horrific happen. And that’s what trauma is.

7:30 Yeah. And as you and I both know, trauma is isn’t necessarily even the event. It’s did to us inside. And it can be the smallest of things. It doesn’t need to be these big giant horrific events that all of us agree is trauma. Rather, there are lots of times there’s these little moments often in childhood too that really affect who we are, how we show up in the world, what kinds of situations get our nervous system activated, uh what kinds of behaviors we create that weren’t natural to us in order to protect ourselves uh from any situation that looks like those situations that did harm to us early on. Would you mind talking for a moment about that? uh juxtaposition of how some people think the capital T big giant event traumas are what trauma is and maybe maybe help people really understand trauma from uh from this kind of psychology and therapeutic uh vantage point. Yeah, absolutely. Um, [clears throat]

8:35 oftent times a lot of how I go about therapy is is what I have experienced and what I have endured. And I have no qualms about self-disclosing personal information of of events and things that I have gone through because if it helps the client to understand that someone else, even someone like me who’s a therapist and has a doctorate degree has has gone through this, I I feel that it’s relatable and it humanizes things.

9:03 Um, so I want I’ll probably refer back a lot to the experiences that I’ve gone through. Um, but also I want to reiterate that a lot of the experiences I went through, I had 12 participants that I interviewed for my study and all of them experienced a lot of similar events. So even after I left the church, um I had been continuing to see my own therapist and my own therapist helped me realize that I had religious trauma. And a as a as a trained trauma therapist, you know, I hadn’t even considered that.

9:41 To me, there were two types of traumas that existed. the trauma that exists with refugees, what they experience in their country of origin. Um, seeing beheadings of their own siblings and their spouses right in front of their faces, having to relocate to a new country, stay in a refugee camp until they get approved for their relocation to a safe place. I mean, this sometimes spans over 20 years. That’s incredible amounts of trauma. um versus war veterans and the trauma that they experienced um from what they witnessed and endured during the war. These were really the only two types of traumas that I thought about and then you know maybe um sexual abuse and physical abuse um from parents or anybody else growing up. The these were this is what I thought of as trauma and it was my own therapist that helped me realize the the traumas that I experienced. And I talk a lot about this in my dissertation of um

10:38 the messages received in the church in particular since my study was the demographic was LGBTQ plus that’s probably a lot of what I’m going to be referring to today. However, religious trauma can sit with anyone. Um, after my sister read my published dissertation, you know, my sister basically was saying that she didn’t even realize that she had religious trauma until she was reading through some of the participant experiences. And even though she doesn’t identify as LGBTQ plus, she experienced those kinds of things in the church.

11:13 Self-monitoring, so messages received from leadership or the doctrines of the church that um you cannot engage in samesex attraction. we can’t even call it being gay. We we have to refer to it as samesex attraction. Um the continued messages of gender roles and that if you do not conform to your assigned gender at birth, then you are not acting within the rights of who you are supposed to be as an individual. The constant messages of not being able to be with your family for eternity if you don’t get married in the church. if you don’t get sealed, if you don’t get sealed to someone who is the opposite gender of yourself. Um the fact that you hear messages of um the three kingdoms and you won’t be able to reach the celestial kingdom if you are not married, if you are not basically living to perfection, um if you’re not going to church every Sunday, if you’re not attending weekly temple sessions and just essentially striving for

12:13 perfection. And these messages not only mess with an individual’s psyche, but it’s the experiences that cause the effects. And and that’s a lot of what my study was about was the experiences individuals experienced of religious trauma or or their experiences in the church in and after and then the effects that that has had. My study talks about um individuals who because of the messages received in the church that they ended up robbing three banks, going to federal prison, um strung out on drugs, alcohol. Um a bishop told a 12-year-old boy who expressed to him that he was having gay tendencies, that he needed to go and have sex with a woman. um a an eight-year-old girl being alone in a room with her bishop for a baptismal interview um asking about how their sex life is there. There are continued messages that we receive. And you know, if you’re female and you’re alone with that authority figure, you’re going to begin to fear men who are in authority.

13:28 Can I ask a question here, Dr. Clemens? Um, I want to ask this question on behalf of members of the church who might be wondering at what you just said. We know that Mormonism teaches against bank robbery. We know that Mormonism teaches against abusing drugs. So, how is it then that pressures or stresses or traumas that were received through Mormonism led people to do those things?

13:58 When you experience trauma in any way, shape, or form, whether it’s religious trauma, PTSD from war, whatever it may be, you need high-risk type of behaviors to help downregulate your brain. You know, you you’ve got a window of tolerance. Everybody has a window of tolerance that they can handle. And when you are pushed out of that window of tolerance, i.e. There are things and such extremities that our brain can’t handle. We get pushed out of what we can tolerate mentally. And to regulate and get ourselves back into that window of tolerance, we use things like drugs, alcohol, high risk events that that help to soothe the brain, but they’re also very very negative type of um coping skills. And and often times the trauma that one has experienced, those are sometimes the only things that can fill a hole in someone’s heart from what they’ve experienced. Yeah. As I think about that, I mean, it’s easy for me to relate it to uh in the church for instance, if somebody

15:10 take uh young women, if they’re made through the religion to feel like they don’t have any worth, we already know that there are uh females in the church who express that they went through situations in uh childhood, being a teenager, where they were made to feel like they didn’t have any worth. Um, it could have been an inappropriate sexual interaction with a church leader for instance. It could be uh the shaming theology of the church.

15:40 And we we quickly recognize that some of them say like what I ended up turning to was uh I was sort of uh sexually promiscuous for instance. And so we recognize that someone getting traumatized when they’re young, that leads to them having certain kinds of feelings about themselves, certain ideas about who they are. And if they don’t see that they have the same uh capacity, ability, potential as their peers, many of them, as you point out, go to high-risisk behaviors such as sexual promiscuity. And so I don’t think it’s that difficult to recognize that sexual promiscuity isn’t the only thing. There are lots of behaviors that people would uh could possibly be pushed to uh challenged in ways by the church that were really unhealthy. Uh an easy one I think of for like adults most of us it seems like such a little thing and but we all as human beings have different degrees of capacity. So in Mormonism, we weren’t supposed to say no to any calling. Correct.

16:47 And some wards are smaller. And there are people in those wards who have two, three, four, five callings at times. And some of those people don’t have the capacity to manage one calling. And and yet because it’s, you know, they’re told that they can’t say no, they continue to take on responsibility after responsibility after responsibility. And it gets to the point where you just get burned out. You get overloaded. Uh and that person number one, they set their own internal uh intuition aside. They’re they’re inside they’re like, “Hey, I probably should say no to this. I can’t manage this. I’m I’m stressed out.” And yet they end up taking that calling and the three or four after that. That has an effect on people. If people feel like their own voice doesn’t matter, they have to do what the system says, then it seems like such a natural thing that people are going to be affected by that in ways that uh lead to them either shutting

17:48 down, which is one of the responses that we do inside our nervous system. and other other ways we go into fight or flight and those often look like running away in some form or shape or pushing back against the ideals that we were given and challenging those in ways that are uh risky behaviors for instance. So that makes a lot of sense to me. You know, Bill, interestingly enough, what you were talking about um I I experience it. I I have a hard time saying no. I I I have a hard time with um confrontation and sometimes just saying no to certain things that are asked of me. Um the day that I passed my oral defense back in March um and I my my oral defense for my dissertation got approved and I I passed um the board and got my PhD. The very next day, um, I was asked by, so I do musical theater as a hobby, and I was asked by a director, um, if I would come play the Reverend in the musical Foot Loose, and I’m like,

18:58 well, God sure has some type of sense of humor. Um, but you know, I you talk about saying not being able to say no and feeling burned out. Um, and it and oftent times in my own life, that’s been something that’s been hard for me. um something that I’m still navigating. You know, I’ve been gone from the church for a decade now and I still have triggers. Um many all not not many all of the participants I interviewed um all to this day, even after having left the church decades later, still have triggers and still self-monitor.

19:35 Yeah, I think a lot of us if not all of us have some anxieties and uh unhealthy systems uh can push those even further. So I wanted to check in uh you know trauma occurs at can occur at any point in our life but I I did I am curious at what point in life it’s sort of typical uh that that shows up. When do we begin to see that people are on the norm or the median reporting that uh they’re experiencing really significant things or at least they’re being affected significantly by something?

20:09 Yeah. Yeah, that’s that’s that’s a really good question. Um, so I feel like an individual begins to experience trauma when they are met with a obstacle that is not um in alliance with their belief system. Um, so for example, um, I realized that I was gay at age 11. um when I first started realizing I was gay and then through the enforcement of the rules in the church and then also set at home um that’s when I started experiencing trauma. I I you know obviously at the age of 11 did not realize it but um there were certain messages that were being executed um and those messages were repeated time after time after time that I actually began to fall asleep to imagining scenarios of how I could die. I I wanted cancer. I wanted to get hit be hit by a bus because I essentially had to come to terms with the fact that for the rest of my life I’m gonna have to marry a woman and I am not going to be able to be

21:25 happy. Um, there was another participant in my study and as she was speaking about her experiences, I really had to contain myself because I just started crying because what she was experiencing and what she was saying were some of the exact same things that I experienced. Um, trauma begins when something in life goes against the grain of of who we are. And in this particular instance, I’m talking about religious trauma and goes against who you naturally are meant to be.

22:04 Yeah. We’re each born with again who we are but certain boundaries that in a healthy world uh people would respect our autonomy would respect how we want to show up in the world and as you point out like even to be told when you recognize like hey I’m gay and to be told like no you know gay is a choice or uh which again for anybody who’s younger or newer in the church uh it it used to be uh deeply explained within our theology uh through uh manuals and such that being such was a choice and and then to be told like no, you can’t really say you’re gay. You have to say it’s you’re sameex attracted. And there’s all these little moments and it’s not just in that. It’s it’s in being told that you have to go in the room with this other guy who’s essentially a stranger and you have to answer whatever questions he asks you.

22:59 Um there are all these moments in Mormonism where our our inner self wants to show up in the world a certain way. We want to maintain our autonomy. We have certain boundaries about uh h how how we want to be treated and where we want to what kind of situations we want to be in so that we feel safe. And anytime some outside force crosses that boundary of safety, we’re going to have some activated experience with that where uh you know our heart rate raises.

23:28 We uh we feel feelings of uh shame or um whatever comes with being manipulated. And that leads to the question here which I often uh when Teresa and I are doing our support groups, this often comes out in the uh session we do on shame and guilt. Um and so I just want to know here you make a distinction between being told that a behavior is wrong versus being told that you are wrong. Right? So uh shame is like oh like I’m bad whereas guilt is this idea that the thing is bad. And I’m just curious what uh what is this why is this difference so psychologically damaging?

24:11 Yeah. Uh there there’s a really important psychological difference between being told a behavior is wrong and being told you are wrong. One targets something you do, but the other targets who you are at your core. Um in my study, that distinction showed up very clearly. Participants weren’t just trying to adjust behaviors. They were trying to suppress or change parts of their identity. Uh you know, that’s where the real harm happens. Um because you can’t separate yourself from yourself. Um many participants who um identified as female um did try to do the housewife duties and they described these experiences as almost hateful that they had to conform to the duties that were assigned to their gender. Um you know I already talked about the teenage male that um the bishop told him to go sleep with a woman to to not be gay. Um, as a result of this initial alarming message from his own bishop and the continued messages through their Sunday

25:10 schoolings that they attended, the effects of this experience caused them to be a sex worker in their undergraduate years. It’s all they knew. You know, oftent times what the trauma we are presented with is oftent times later in life continues to become our obstacle. Can I ask Samuel? Mhm. Am I understanding the story correctly that the bishop told this young man to go have sex with a woman in violation of the law of chastity or only after marrying her?

25:42 No, he was 12. He a bishop told a 12-year-old teenage boy that to not be gay, he needs to go sleep with a woman. Yeah. I I wonder I I know you’re aruck. Uh But it it makes me wonder, you know, I can see the natural feedback from a leader would be, well, you know, you you should sleep with a woman first before you decide that, right? and how a leader frames their messaging whether it was as innocent as suggesting like hey you don’t know until you know and maybe you should you know whereas again untrained lay ministry doing the best they can at best at worst having their own unhealthiness and then uh perpetuating that by telling a young kid an idea but now that gay kid has to figure out like oh like He said if I like I would I would if I slept with a woman I would recognize I’m not gay. Okay then I should probably sleep with a woman and find out if I’m not gay. It really does the messaging whether naive,

26:52 uninformed or whether at worst an unhealthy person passing on their unhealthiness. Young kids are so uh easily shaped. Yeah. Anyway, any thoughts there? Yeah. No, absolutely. And you know, continuing to go off of essentially distinguishing the difference between, you know, being told a behavior is wrong and and then just being told that you’re wrong. um like you asked um that 12-year-old boy essentially was saying that um if he were to engage in homosexual behaviors that that behavior is wrong versus you know saying that that’s who you naturally are is wrong.

27:39 Um that’s why identity suppression became such a strong theme in my findings. Uh when people internalize the idea that who they are is incompatible with what’s considered good or worthy, it creates deep shame and long-term psychological distress. Something to understand about not only the cycle of trauma but um I talk about this in my dissertation, my study is the I call it the guilt cycle.

28:07 Um the guilt cycle begins where you receive a certain message and if you are not adhering or following that message, you begin to feel guilty. Well, then what happens is you start fearing. You start fearing, oh my gosh, I’m not going to make it to the celestial kingdom. Oh my god, I’m going to have to go confess to my bishop this Sunday that I looked at porn because if I don’t go and confess to him, then I’m not going to be able to serve sacrament. And growing up in Iowa where, you know, there’s only one ward and a lot of them are your own family members. If you’re only one of two um holders that are passing the sacrament and then all of a sudden you’re not doing that and you’re sitting in the pee with your own family, you start to feel guilt and then you start to be fearful of what people are thinking about you and then comes the shame and it’s all a vicious cycle. That shame in turn creates guilt that goes to fear that goes to shame and and it’s hard to get out of that cycle. It’s hard

29:15 to get out of that loop, which is why a lot of young um LGBTQ plus individuals in the church self harm. That’s why a lot of them like myself, like my participant I talked about, go to bed every night wishing that they would die. Yeah. Um, in your research, you talk about so like Sophie choices, the the idea of a a no- win or a lose-lose situation, and you talk about these ideas in, you know, things that happen in church where you’re asked to compromise your authenticity and so that cost you your belonging or vice versa that you’re asked to sort of sacrifice your belonging. For instance, if your brain tells you that the church isn’t true and therefore out of a act of integrity, you step away from the system, but everybody that’s still in it is learning language that paints you as something bad or less than or broken or the, you know, the the tears or the chief among the wheat. Um, the lazy learner. and and so then by you uh being

30:24 asked to sacrifice your belonging, you lose in some way your authenticity. And I’m just curious if you can name some of the the ways in which this happens in church. Like what are rubber meets the road? What are some of the things that people experience in Mormonism that puts them into a lose-lose situation? Oh, absolutely. and and I’m a lot of what I’m going to speak to right now is direct experiences from the participants in my study. One of the most powerful patterns in the data from my study was the sense of being stuck in a no-win situation like you’re talking about.

31:00 Participants described feeling like they had to choose between authenticity and belonging. If they were honest about who they were, they risked losing their family, their community, and their place within the church. if you hold any callings, they were worried about losing those callings. The stigma that comes with gossip. Um, but if they stayed and tried to conform, then they had to suppress core parts of themselves, the the lovely double-edged sword. You know, not only have I experienced this in my own life, but it was very apparent with all of the participants. Many still describe that when they go to family events, even after leaving the church, they have to hold back who they are. One of the participants that um I had um is male and identifies as bisexual. He he has a master’s degree. He has a child.

31:47 He’s very successful in his own line of work. He still in his mid-40s has not admitted to being bisexual for fear of how his family will respond to him. Um he would like to venture out and date men um and has not been a part of the church for many years. But still the effects are everlasting. He still feels like he cannot be his true authentic self in front of his family. Many other participants described two versions of themselves even after leaving the church. And it’s interesting that this phrase was used by more than one participant. So they describe themselves as their church self and then their true self. And a lot of time when they are with friends and family members that are still active LDS, they have to go into their church self even after leaving the church. I’ve experienced that. Um, I live in [clears throat] Idaho and I go back to my family in Iowa for Christmas every year. And even after leaving the

32:43 church and having that uncomfortable conversation, which my both of my parents are supportive of that now, um, very much so, I had to I [snorts] had to exhibit my church self. I I had to really hold back on a lot of my own thoughts. And um, now going back, I am my true authentic self. And I think that that the more that you receive therapy, you really talk about what’s going on and the trauma that you experienced, you can get yourself out of having to live those dual roles. It’s also important to state, you know, that some parents were supportive of leaving their children. Um even if they didn’t support them at first, they eventually did. Um some parents or mothers even left the church with their um kids.

33:34 Yeah, I wanted to put something up on the screen here just to sort of signal what you’re talking about. Again, I I am Arf, I’m going to ask you, are you still surprised that this is up on the church website? This is the Elder Oaks Lance Wickman interview. Oh, you’re muted, my friend. I’m sitting here saying, “Yeah, I knew exactly what it was as soon as you started reaching for your holster.”

33:55 Yeah. I I’m so surprised the church has not removed this and tried to get away from it as far as it possibly could. This is still on the church’s website. It’s an interview with Elder Don H. Oaks and Elder Lance B. Wickman. Same gender attraction. That’s the word. All I know I know one of the words in the spot I’m looking for is friends. So, I just go to search for that and then I end up um Bill, I’m sorry you’re I thought you were scrolling down, but I just wanted to say I think that we can all agree that if President Oaks wanted this off the church website, it would be off the church website.

34:28 I agree with you on that one. And if he wanted it to stay on the church website, it would stay on the church website. Yeah. So Lance Wickman and Elder Oaks are addressing the LGBT issue and they’re given a ton of questions and they give their answers. And as you point out, this lose-lose situation where even if you’re out of the church, you’re a gay man, lesbian woman, you’re out of the church, you don’t believe it anymore, away from your family and friends, you live your authentic life, and then you’re invited over for Thanksgiving to be with family. Imagine if your parents take home this message.

35:06 But the public affairs says they ask the question at what point does showing that love towards your LGBT uh family member cross the line into inadvertently endorsing behavior. If the son says, “If you love me, can I bring my partner to our home to visit?” That seems so innocuous, doesn’t it? So innocent. Uh can we come home for the holidays? And then he’s asking the leader, how do you balance that? are asking the member, how do you balance that against, for example, concern for other children in the home, which immediately my brain goes, do you think it’s contagious? Um, Elder Oaks answers, he says, that’s a decision that needs to be made individually by the person responsible calling upon the Lord for inspiration.

35:54 Hey, that sentence alone isn’t healthy, but at least it’s moderately neutral. And if he just walked away, then it would leave room for the mothers and fathers of gay sons and lesbian daughters to make their own internal decision about how they’re going to treat their child and not worry about what the brethren say. It also says that no matter how badly you act in that situation, you have divine approval.

36:21 Say say that another way, RFM. It means that if you behave badly and treat your child badly in those situations, you have divine approval because Elder Oaks has said it’s a decision that needs to be made individual individually by the person responsible calling upon the Lord for inspiration. No matter how you treat them, you have the inspiration of God behind it. Right? And and so then he does this first sentence, but then he tells you what he would do.

36:52 the response that he imagines would be most fitting. And so if you’re a member of the church who wants to be obedient and wants to be loyal to the system, of course you’re going to take the leader’s answer, not the other answers that he’s also given you permission to possibly have. And I agree with you, RFM, you get to be kind or cruel to your loved one. And as long as you can look them in the eye and go, “Well, I prayed about it, so my cruelty comes from a place of inspiration,” then you get to justify it.

37:27 If we were to talk about, I think it was a President Packer or Elder Packer at some point talking about or insinuating in a talk about hitting a missionary companion because he’s gay. If he had said that’s a decision that needs to be made individual by the missionary, well, you’re sanctioning it. Yeah. And suddenly the number of times that one missionary hits another would go up right at that moment. From that po moment forward you would notice an increase in the amount of abuse from one missionary to another.

37:59 Some things prophets should actually say don’t do. Yeah. And so he says I can imagine that in most circumstances the parents would say please don’t do that. Don’t put us into that situation. Sorry that position. Surely, if there are children in the home, surely is a strong word, right? That’s what you should do. Surely, if there are children in the home who would be influenced by this example, the answer would likely be that. There would also be other factors that would make that a likely answer. I can also imagine some circumstances in which it might be possible to say, “Yes, come, but don’t expect to stay overnight. Don’t expect to be a lengthy house guest. Don’t expect us to take you out and introduce you to our friends or to deal with you in a public situation that would imply our approval of your partnership. There are so many different circumstances, it’s impossible to give one answer that fits all. But here are all the rudest of answers that I approve of. I want to highlight something. So,

38:57 there’s a buzz word. There’s a lot of buzzwords in these paragraphs, but the buzzword in this particular one that hit me and I’m sure a lot of other LGBTQ plus individuals is public because public says it all right there. Don’t go out and don’t flaunt your partner. Don’t let us be seen with you in public. You know, essentially what these messages are are really saying to the lay reader is you can inquire of God. You can make it your own decision. However, there is the message that same gender attraction is not allowed in this church. And yes, it looks like we are being accepting of it, but in no way, shape, or form are you.

39:43 Yeah. And I’ve talked to so many parents who were very supportive if they had a child who came out gay. They tried in their home to uh show up in a way that they would be a safe space for their kid to come out as a Mormon and gay. And yet so many of them told me that uh the kid didn’t come out. And when the kid finally did years and years later, they informed their parents that I was so scared to do it uh because I thought that you were going to show up the way the church taught you to show up. And so I can only imagine when you’re the child of a set of parents who are displaying outwardly their loyalty to the system, their obedience to the system that it would be essentially impossible to come out to your parents and as you point out even later in life to show up at a Thanksgiving dinner knowing that this family is Mormon and this is they feel they’ve chosen to agree with the leaders so as to be obedient and feel about being gay or lesbian the same way the

40:51 church leaders have expressed they feel about being gay and lesbian. So you go to Thanksgiving and you continue to pretend you’re straight. You keep your romantic partner completely unknown to your family. When you show up, you change your voice. You change your mannerisms because your family needs you to fit a certain expectation. And so you don’t get to be your true self. And again, I can only imagine the kind of weight that is on a person who all they want to do is just be their authentic self. And their parents have signaled and the system has signaled that if you do that here, you will be isolated, marginalized, ostracized in some way. I’m 38 years old and um last year at the age of 37 um I met who is now my partner and um first real relationship at the age of 37 and I brought him home to my parents. I felt safe enough to do so but it took being the age of 38 to feel comfortable enough

42:03 to do that. And and that alone speaks volumes. you know, someone who is currently in a doctorate program, had his own private practice, counseledled other individuals and and the fact that, you know, it took me that long to do that and feel comfortable doing that. I mean, I even had a set of rules before we left to go to Iowa. I said, “You cannot cuddle me. You cannot hold my hand. We cannot kiss in public.” Like even still with as trained as I am, I’ve been in therapy for 11 years and I’ve gone through the trainings and programs and healing that I have, there are still things that I am insanely uncomfortable with. And that was also the same situation for a lot of my participants, even participants that have been married for decades.

42:48 Yeah. And this is exactly what you mean by a lose-lose, no win-win situation. When you recognize that your friends and family, the only way that they’re going to treat you uh like all the other kids is that you show up as a straight man when you’re not. Mhm. And and so you either you either don’t show up for family events or you notice being treated differently. Again, Elder Oak says like, “I wouldn’t even take you to dinner and introduce you to my friends.” And you certainly couldn’t stay the night here.

43:29 It couldn’t stay for any extended amount of time. That’s just normal. Like, I’m a parent. My kids go like, “Hey, Dad. I’m coming into town. I’m going to, you know, I’m going to crash at your place for a week and love to hang out.” I’m going to be like, “Oh my goodness, please. Like, I would love to have this time to connect with you.” Um, and yet a a Mormon kid or ex- Mormon kid who who realizes they don’t fit in the box. They’re they’re gay or lesbian and their parents want to follow Elder Oak’s counsel, they’re left to make really difficult choices between being accepted in the family or being their authentic self.

44:06 And compromising either one of those comes with uh harm and injury. uh moral injury of sorts that that nobody should have to take on because of a religious systems influence. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, any other thoughts there? Okay, let’s jump into the next one. So, um you make a note that and I’ve shared this with people too before. You make a note that um the system starts off training you that it will punish you for not fitting in. Mhm.

44:43 You have to compromise parts of yourself in order to do that. Um but there comes a point where the system sort of trains all of us to reg to to enforce with each other or to enforce ourselves. The system no longer has to threaten us. The threats have been there so long that we now police each other or police ourselves. Um your thoughts on that? Yeah, this is what I call self monitoring. So what happens over time is that the system becomes internalized.

45:16 People don’t need external enforcement in the same way anymore because they start monitoring themselves. Um participants in my study described constantly checking their thoughts, their feelings, their behaviors almost like an internal surveillance system. And what’s really important is that this doesn’t just stop when someone leaves the church. Um I experience this if I am given rules. [snorts] Um, anybody who is older than me and is a authority figure and has rules, I’m automatically already triggered because I continuously already think of what I am doing wrong and how I will later need to go confess that in whatever way that might be. Um, for participants in the study, um, many of them female, they were worried about being the perfect housewife. And if they were not doing wely chores or adhering to what their gender roles tell them they need to do within the church setting, they would be shamed for not

46:12 adhering to that. The males that I interviewed had a hard time trying to hide any feminine traits for not wanting to appear too girly. Um I did sports because my dad wanted me to and um luckily found um community theater that helped me. Um even after leaving many participants still experienced guilt, fear or a sense that what they were doing or what they were doing was wrong. Um that ties into the loss of autonomy we see in the study where people feel disconnected from their own instincts and instead rely on internalized rules.

46:49 I I think of a couple ways that this shows up. One, I think on the extreme end, scrupulosity is sort of a form of this where somebody becomes so rigid about all the expectations that have been placed on them that they are looking for every possible way in which they’re breaking a rule, uh, crossing a line, and so they have this internal fear to sort of overcheck in about everything, right? So that seems like one natural way that this shows up in really unhealthy extremes that that people being affected by extremely rigid systems that ask you to uh ask you to keep in mind a million rules uh in a way that you you really can’t you really can’t keep all of them.

47:39 It’s it’s like your brain is an inferno. I I felt it. I there there was a time in my undergraduate where I did not know if I had confessed about something in my past and so I made a meeting with my bishop. I was there with him for about 45 minutes. I wrote down a list of every single transgression that I have ever made. It was humiliating. It was traumatizing. Had to rehash things that I already felt insanely shameful and guilty about. and and I I rewent over everything and confessed everything and still after leaving that meeting I was racking my brain for what I had forgotten.

48:19 Yeah. The other one I think of too is women often the women who are trying to uh grab a hold of some value to their voice will often uphold the patriarchy. So the only way that a sister in the church gets some sort of standing is by pointing to the brethren and and pointing everyone around to follow them like, “Hey, you you know, go listen to those folks. Uh be obedient to them.”

48:50 And it it’s you can really tell when this happens, but there there is this uh mechanism that women trying to get some value to their voice back end up uh upholding the patriarchy with their language because that’s the only way that they get to have any sort of mediocre standing in a ward. And so I to me that’s another way uh that people show up with this kind of behavior. Absolutely agree. Yeah. Uh any thoughts from you RFM?

49:18 Yeah. when you say about um people who are Mormons or other groups but um they have all these rules and eventually they internalize them and they start to monitor their own thoughts and their own actions in Mormonism. Isn’t that what we call being righteous? Isn’t that where we’re supposed to get to in Mormonism? Isn’t that considered a good thing in Mormonism? That’s part of what I was referring to earlier when I’m talking about the insurmountable amount of tasks that you have to complete to get to the celestial kingdom. And you know, for someone like me who or and my part the participants of the study, that’s exactly what they’re thinking too. Like this does not fit with who I am naturally, but to be righteous and to get to the celestial kingdom, this these are all the things that I have to do.

50:13 Yeah. By the way, that is of course a a seminary scripture in the Book of Mormon. Is it? It’s Mosiah. Is it 242? I can’t remember. Colby will excoriate me. It’s one of his favorites where it says, uh, “Oh, remember remember.” It’s one of those five verses. Oh, remember remember in the Book of Mormon that if you don’t watch your thoughts and your actions and everything you do, then you’re not going to be able to get into the kingdom of heaven. I butchered the last part, but that’s the gist of it. Yeah.

50:45 In my in my work with clients, I the the uh arena of trauma support that I’ve been trained in is uh sematic informed uh trauma coach. And and so my uh my training is to help people recognize the things going on in their nervous system. Help them to learn regulation tools. Help them to learn to be present with the things that are showing up in their body, not make them wrong, normalize it.

51:16 Help them to learn the tools that they can little by little gain more capacity, the ability to stay in their frontal cortex and make methodical decisions in the midst of being activated rather than being in lizard brain. And uh I just want to know like your study talks about this not just as a belief issue but something that the people in the study felt in their bodies. It was sematic for them. And I’m just curious what kinds of physical or emotional patterns you saw showing up in your research. Most people think a faith crisis is an intellectual endeavor, but it is as much if not more a sematic or emotional endeavor uh than it is intellectual. Your thoughts there?

52:01 Yeah. Uh you know, this wasn’t just about beliefs. It showed up emotionally and physically as well. Participants described ongoing anxiety, emotional distress, um this constant tension. So, it wasn’t just I think this is wrong. it was I feel this is wrong. Um that can look like chronic stress, hypervigilance or feeling like you’re always being evaluated. Um I talked earlier about the guilt cycle where you know you feel that guilt and then you feel that fear and then you feel that shame and it just all continues this perpetual cycle of keeping you in tune with being righteous um and adhering to the rules of the church. And then, you know, I I if you begin to start doing things that you feel are not right, you start to harp on yourself and you start to say, “I’m not going to be able to make it to the celestial kingdom if I don’t go and correct this right away.” That induces anxiety. That induces parts of ourselves, again, like I talked about earlier, where we can’t handle to be in

53:10 our own window of tolerance anymore. And we get pushed out of our window of tolerance. When we get pushed out of our window of tolerance, we are very hard to be around. We project onto other individuals. We become irritable and engage in that high-risk type of behavior and thought. Dr. Clemens, can I get your opinion on this? First off, I have to say Book of Mormon, Mosiah 2, not 42, it’s 41. It is a seminary scripture. It is remember, remember, but it’s the wrong one. It’s also in King Benjamin’s address a couple of chapters later. It’s chapter 4:30. And I want to read this to you and get your take on it. Okay? Because this is like the end of the sermon.

53:47 Okay? But this much I can tell you Mosiah 4:30 that if you do not watch yourselves and your thoughts and your words and your deeds and observe the commandments of God, and continue in the faith of what ye have heard concerning the coming of our Lord, even unto the end of your lives, ye must perish. And now, oh man, remember just one remember there and perish not. What do you think about that?

54:17 You know what comes up for me when you were saying that scripture? Um at the end of my mission um because of course I had to confess that I had same gender attraction to my mission president at the beginning of my mission which um for those who don’t understand as much about the LDS religion, let’s just say you move around a lot. every single new stranger that’s a bishop or authority figure, you got to let them know you got same gender attraction. How humiliating. But going back to the end of my mission, my mission in our exit interview, my mission president said, Sam or Elder Clemens, I want you to fast every single week until you find someone that’s compatible for you. Um, which also was talked about in my patriarchal blessing that I would find someone who is compatible with me. You mean a woman?

55:07 He’s talking about a woman. You got to fast every week until you find a woman. Told me that I need to fast every single week until I find a woman. And I’ll tell you that I, you know, the brainwashing kicked in when I served my mission. And um I was so dedicated to making sure that that was accurate that I I’m six feet. Um served in Brazil, came back from Brazil probably weighing 140 pounds. And when I went back to college, every single Tuesday, um, every every Monday night until Tuesday night, I would fast. I would go to the gym. I would work out with my roommates. I I would be to the point of almost passing out. I was weighing 125 pounds. And for [snorts] two and a half years, every single week, I fasted. And it’s exactly what that scripture talks about. Mind your thoughts. Every single action that you make is recorded. When judgment day comes, God’s going to pull out that book of everything that you did. Is it going to be good enough for you to get into the celestial kingdom and spend the rest

56:14 of eternity placed in one of those kingdoms? Yeah. When I was uh when I joined the church, God had a slideshow, but now I think he he just streams your life in front of you on judgment day. Yeah. Yeah. I want just notice by the way your mission president’s council to me sounds like scrupulosity except it’s not a voice inside of you. It’s the voice in the mission president’s office or if it’s again somebody else, it’s the bishop’s office or the state president’s office. When a leader, an untrained lay leader tells you to do some extreme behavior to fix something that doesn’t need fixed, that is essentially some outside voice scrupulosity.

57:01 We all know like scrupulosity is not healthy. Yeah. Well, to have a leader telling you to fast every other week uh or fast every week to so you’re not gay is asking you to do a thing which is not going to be fixed by fasting. Well, and then when I came home from my mission, I was going to a therapist that was a LDS therapist and pretty sure now reflecting back on it, he was probably same gender attracted. Um, but he gave me articles about how when you know, you start feeling gay tendencies that that’s just Satan touching you and and getting into your head and making you think just because you’re not good at sports, not just because you’re not good at all of the other things that the other boys your age do, that you are gay. And he said that that’s Satan making you that way. I’m sorry, honey, but I was born gay and I if I had the op now I change my mind. I used to say if I had the option to be born gay, I would not choose to be that way. But I absolutely

58:05 am 100% happy for the way that I was born. I know I was born this way to do a purpose. I did my dissertation for a reason. I wanted to talk about a social gap that exists and I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to come on your guys’ show and be able to expand and talk about not only my experiences but the participants experiences and those who are still in the church experiencing this and I want to give them courage to to leave and speak up for themselves. Dr. Clemens, yes.

58:38 You fasted every week for two and a half years. Is that what you said? It was it was a good two and a half to three years probably. I I want to ask I just wanted to ask you this question. Okay. I’m presuming first off that the reason you did this is because you had faith in what your mission president told you and you wanted that result. But why was it you finally stopped? What did that look like?

59:03 I stopped because I just couldn’t do it anymore. A lot of people were making comments about my weight. Um there again, you know, there was one shaming to another type of shaming. Um and I just I I was feeling hopeless. I was feeling in despair. Um you know, quickly thereafter, I met a woman, got engaged. Um and even at that point with how strict I was trying to be in the church, my body was just naturally telling me, Sam, this isn’t right. Um and thank God that I did not marry her.

59:43 Yeah. You know, going back earlier, RFM, you asked him about, you know, robbing banks and these egregious behaviors that we go like, ah, but it’s really simple as Sam’s talking to make connections to why some girls might end up having eating disorders, for instance, and and why we humans because of the harm that comes to us by the outside world, why we might choose certain behaviors that a large segment of society would go like, I can’t believe you’re doing that. Like, that doesn’t make any sense. just don’t do that anymore. Well, people can’t.

1:00:16 It’s not that easy for those who have been affected in these ways. And so, as Sam is talking about the the the gentleman who rob banks and you go like, “Oh, come on. Religious trauma led to this.” Well, once you understand all the kinds of behaviors that religious trauma or any other kind of trauma can lead to, for me, it makes a whole lot more sense. Um, in your research you talk a lot about family dynamics and I can think of lots of egregious ones. People acting on Elder Oaks council for instance uh I think is egregious harm to to a family connection uh between parents and children or or someone and their sibling. But you also mentioned your research that there’s a lot of subtle ways that this takes place. there’s a lot of little things that maybe we don’t even recognize are are impacting how this shows up in family dynamics. Uh your thoughts on that?

1:01:15 Yeah. Um for my study, family was one of the most central parts of the study. Um and again, when I refer to my study, I also refer to real life experiences that are currently happening. Um but it often showed up in subtle ways rather than extreme ones. Like you said, it it wasn’t always outright rejection. More often, it was things like conditional acceptance, silence, or feeling like love and belonging were tied to staying aligned with certain beliefs. In my own life, I was so worried about leaving the church because of everything that was tied to that. Um, because the LDS church places such a strong emphasis on families, participants weren’t just dealing with personal conflicts. they were navigating the risk of losing their primary support system. That’s why loss of family and community belonging became such a strong theme in my findings. And you know, I I don’t know if we’ll have time to get to this question, but one one of the things I recommend at the end of my study is how do we reconcile this?

1:02:18 How how do we teach individuals who are trying to leave the church what they can do to um love themselves and and be able to go on living? It’s it’s almost like the shashank redemption. It’s like it’s almost like coming out of prison. You come out of prison. How do you deal with the real life? How do you deal with the real world? And finding a community that you can realign yourself with that’s positive is one of the most important things that I can recommend. And if I were to teach this at university graduate social work levels, if I were to teach other clinicians about harm that can be reduced, love, acceptance, and finding a sense of belonging. That’s most of what I have noticed is that individuals who leave the church cannot [snorts] find another community where they feel like they belong.

1:03:15 Um, and by the way, RFM, jump in anywhere you want to. Uh, I’m just I’m I’m looking here over the questions in the two support groups that Teresa and I have going at the moment. It surprised me a little bit, but the majority of people in those groups are people that came out of Mormonism years ago. They uh they deconstructed their brain told them it wasn’t true and they stepped away a long time ago, but they they sought out the support group because um they hadn’t quite reconstructed things. And and so I think a lot of people out there think like, okay, you learn the church isn’t true.

1:03:54 It goes back to the saying like you can leave Mormonism but you can’t leave it alone. Um this idea that you can figure out something’s wrong here, examine the history, see how it treats different groups of people, deconstruct it, step away. And you would think that it would be this immediate relief and you could just move on with your life and you could just be happy. But that’s not what happens.

1:04:22 No. people, most if not if not almost all people spend a considerable amount of time trying to figure it out. Yep. Um would you mind speaking to like why that’s so difficult? Why there’s so much uh going on there that keeps us [music] Yeah. So um a lot of what is happening is so for example I was born into the religion. I spent 18 years of going to Sunday school of going to church for three hours every single Sunday and being conditioned. And that’s what was happening. Um fast and testimony meeting of people going up and saying that they know the church is true. you’re sitting there in the pews that if you don’t know the church is true, you’re going to feel guilty for for also not feeling that and you feel bad for not having felt that way. There are so many messages that you that is coming to the conscious that’s going to the subconscious. You are receiving so many messages and you go on baptismal trips with fellow kids your age. You spend hours at the

1:05:42 temple with them. You drive on buses to go to Nauvoo, Illinois, and visit old church history. You you help build temples. You do volunteer service activities. You do a lot of community activities outside of the church setting with these individuals that you have grown up with. You go to a community college, you go to a a BYU Idaho, you go to BYU where you have family home evening, you you are continuously being placed in familial settings and groups.

1:06:18 You are continuously being placed in a community that seems like they support you. If you just go and leave all of that, you are leaving behind a life that you have set up for yourself to know and expect what’s going to happen. And even though it feels like they were there to support you, are they really supporting your decision if you leave the church? And and so my answer to you in a very roundabout way is you are conditioned to be in a community setting and that is why it is so hard to navigate and figure out what life looks like after that because you just don’t know what to do with yourself.

1:07:06 Can I interpose a question which I think might fit in here. Dr. Dr. Clemens, you have heard, I’m sure, many many times as have I and everybody else that when a person leaves the LDS church, there is a certain mantra which we all know and love, which is the people who remain behind say you can leave the church, but you can’t leave it alone. Do you think that’s a valid criticism?

1:07:35 that depends on every single individual’s experience and how they go forward. Um, it’s the healing process. I I went through what I would say was the stages of grief. I was sad. I was depressed. I was angry angry for many years. Um, and even doing these interviews have re-triggered me and re-triggered some anger in in me. Um, so I agree with that, but in a different sense. You may have grown up or been a part of something that was in your life and you can’t extract that. You can’t take that away. But it doesn’t mean that you need to dwell on it. If you dwell on your animosity and your negative experiences and your anger, then you are going to continuously be strapped to the chains that bind you to that church. But if you are able to break away from those chains, find healthy coping skills, find a new meaning in life, then you absolutely are able to move on. I felt like I was dumb for most of my life. And um somehow the church continued to perpetuate this feeling of being dumb.

1:08:51 And after I graduated from my undergraduate degree with like a 2.99 GPA, I I never thought that I would be able to go back to school. There’s no way that Sam could go and get a graduate degree. Um but when I started doing community work and servicing other people in a healthy way, um I was like, you know, I’ve gone through some crap in my life. I want to be a therapist and help other people. And when I went to grad school, um, I graduated with a 3.8 GPA and then I was like, you know what?

1:09:25 I got to go take my lensure exam. I passed it. I passed my second one. I created my own private practice. I went on to go and get my PhD, the first in my family. and all of these things. I just got this new sense of confidence because I left the church and was able to tap into other areas of myself, tap into parts. Bill, you were talking about sematic experiences and sematic therapy.

1:09:52 I like to do a lot of parts therapy and and so I was able to tap into different parts of myself that I didn’t know existed because I found a new gained self-confidence that I did not even know existed in Sam Clemens. Wow. It sounds like dumb Sam isn’t so dumb after all. Yeah, I’m a big fan of IFS. Uh Richard Schwarz, uh for folks out there who are interested, the book that I think helps explain to people’s no bad parts. The idea that like a family structure internally in each of us are parts that took on traumas, parts that protect those wounded inner children. Um, and there’s a lot of uh modern uh uh therapeutic approaches that uh utilize IFS or internal family systems. Um, and I want to just second something you said. You know, people come to me and they go, I just wish them the mother effer would burn down, you know, ending.

1:10:48 Yeah. And I look at those people and I say, hear me out. Be angry as long as you need to be angry. there. Anger is a is a reasonable stage to stay in for some time while you uh process and uh heal over all the things it did to you. Uh you have a right to be angry. There’s nothing wrong or bad about that. Um, but at the same time, if you spend your life’s energy trying to uh burn it down, then then you’ll take your last breath and that thing will still be there. So, don’t get me wrong, there’s a part of me that wants to burn it down for sure. Mhm.

1:11:30 There is such a large part of me that has made my life’s focus to try to help people make sense of it so that they can take back their real agency and make informed decisions in or out about what they’re going to do with their life. Yeah. And and so I just note that uh on one hand, yes, you’re 100% right, folks. Don’t stay in anger forever. You’ll you’ll waste your life’s energy.

1:11:58 at the same time be angry as long as you need to be angry because and again I’m a convert so I’m I’m privileged RFM I think you’ll relate to this too in some way joining the church at 17 I had already formed a lot of uh a lot of my approach to how I see the world and how I think about things and so I really feel sorry for people who are born in the church because it’s the only lens they had so from a from the birth essentially They were taught that emotions are the best route to truth.

1:12:32 They were taught things about gender, about race, about sexuality that doesn’t really work in the real world. They were told that coffee is bad. Uh or and and but critical thinking is like this other thing that’s horrible. And and so like what how we weighed what was right or wrong. uh having to have the religion choose your underwear for you and uh ask you all the time if you’re wearing the underwear that they picked out for you.

1:13:01 Uh telling you in the temple that you that you do you covenant to never laugh loudly. a bishop making discernment of telling a 12-year-old boy that to not be gay, you should go sleep with a woman. Or a state president at BYU Idaho admitting in a new female um asking her as soon as she walks in the door, how does it feel to defile another fellow sister of God? Telling women that if they’re raped that some of the accountability of that happening belongs to them. Yeah, there are all these little things, thinking coffee is bad to these really horrific things. It’s better to come home in a coffin than to have lost your virtue. And so to be a little kid essentially from birth and to have this lens of the world that is so far removed from reality and then sometime in your 20s, your 30s and for most people 30s, 40s, 50s, even 60s or 70s figuring out the church lied to them and it’s not what it claimed to be. and having to go

1:14:03 like, oh, like my entire idea of reality needs to be taken apart and I need to figure out who I am. I need to figure out my sexuality. I need to I need to figure out uh what my voice sounds like. I need to figure out what it means to to show up in the world as my authentic self. There is so much time lost, so much energy spent in the wrong places that for someone to feel betrayed, deceived, and angry for an extended period of time makes so much sense to me. And so I again I want to say like get out of it when you can, but be angry as long as you need to be.

1:14:45 Absolutely. I really appreciate that you touched on this. What came to my mind was um Ericson’s eight stages of life. And you know when thinking about living the rest of your life in animosity and anger, you are missing out on some really key components of of stages of life that one is supposed to be experiencing. Um there are eight stages that Ericson talks about. And the seventh stage is generativity versus stagnation. And so this is ages 40 to 65 focuses on creating or nurturing things that outlast the self. So your career, your family, success leads to feelings of of usefulness. And then if you think about the last stage which is integrity versus despair 65 plus, this is your reflection on life leading to feelings of wisdom or regret. And a lot of the individuals that feel that anger, that long-lasting anger, you know, are you going to live the rest of your life in in fear and in anger, or are we going to use these fuelings to go and write a

1:15:53 dissertation about something that hasn’t been studied? Are we going to go and support sexual minorities? Are we going to voice and use our trauma to help other people? Yeah. People often deconstructing because they were given so many rules to live by. They’re trying to figure out what the real correct rules are. Yeah. Very much so. Yeah. And people often go into extremes. They choose really risky behaviors. uh uh promiscuity of one sort or another, drug use, etc.

1:16:33 Robbing banks. Robbing banks. It makes sense to me that people do that. As you point out, the best thing I think those of us in this community can do is provide aka community and help people to have enough other voices to bounce things off of so that as people are leaving this religious system, which is a high demand fundamentalist system which has so much rigidity to it, that people can have healthy uh advice and input coming their direction to help them figure out like what’s a responsible way to move past the boundaries that this system set up so that I live my life being my authentic self, choosing to do the things that that I want to do and be, but do so in a way that is responsible and not leading to risky behaviors that end up with horrible consequences to mistakes and bad choices. Um, you know, Mormonism gives you this certainty that often leads to some of its youth or young adults avoiding making bad choices. People ask me, you know, what about my kids? If I

1:17:40 leave the church, what’ll happen? And my response is always, your kid is probably going to make more mistakes if your family steps away from the church, but they’ll end up being better, uh, more responsible, higher functioning adults because mistakes are part of what life is about. And so I think we can all in this community do a better job of helping people who are exiting the faith to know like, yeah, you’re right. That system put constraints on you that were not healthy and took away your autonomy.

1:18:10 So how do we get your autonomy back, but also um minimize the kinds of unhealthy choices that you could make that could lead to unhealthy outcomes. Um, and and I I think generally I think our community does a great job of that, but I think it’s something that we could all do better at, uh, is to be a good sounding board and, uh, uh, a place to sort of help people know what they’ve gotten away from, what are all the choices that are out there, and how to make intelligent, informed decisions about how one uh, lives their life outside the church. Um, I I want to note here all the way from believers and then to therapists and I’ll say this, I’m quite surprised by the number of people I talk to who meet with a therapist who can’t relate in any way to their client being in a high demand fundamentalist system. Mhm.

1:19:10 So, as the person is there expressing the the things they need therapeutic help with, um, deconstruction of Mormonism, trying to figure out the identity, trying to deal with some of the unhealthy sexual attitudes or, uh, other things that make us who we are, the therapists are often illquipped if they haven’t spent time in the system. And then believers of course are really cold and distant to anybody who chooses some alternative way of believing and then acting out their life.

1:19:45 Um your thoughts on what people are getting wrong when they try to be present and hold space for somebody who’s deconstructing, who’s been harmed by the religion, who’s trying to step away and live their authentic life. What what do believers and believers on one end and therapist on another those sort of two extremes like here’s the person who sort of is taught to um be cold to you and then the therapist is there to help you and they’re educated to help and yet all along that spectrum people are falling short on understanding what’s going on here.

1:20:25 Yeah. So, so the first thing that I want to say is that even if you don’t have experience in an area, any client that is presented to me, if if they are presenting an issue and I do not know anything about that or I have not experienced it myself, I go and I provide um and and get education about that um and and I try to inquire and understand as much as I can. I will never be culturally competent in any realm, but I at least try to understand and be empathetic. So, I at least want to preface stating that if there are any therapists out there that may not um know or have gone through what someone else has gone through, at least you can go and try and educate yourself. Um, but to speak more to to your question, one of the biggest misunderstandings is that people see all of this religious trauma um as just a belief change. And I think therapists oftent times see that as a belief change, like someone simply stopped believing and just moved on. And

1:21:34 you even stated that. Um, but what my study shows is that it’s much deeper than that. This is about identity, belonging, and long-term emotional impact. participants in my study were dealing with psychological, emotional, and social harm. Um, not just a shift in beliefs. So, when people minimize that, they’re missing how deeply it affects someone’s sense of self and their relationships. Um, everything plays out in an individual’s life. When it comes to religious trauma, the way someone perceives being given criticism, um, religious trauma creates a sense of fear and paranoia that in some situations on the other end that party might not be intending any of what they’re saying. It creates so many psychological type of harms that a therapist should know what symptoms are being exhibited from this trauma. There are many individuals still in the LDS church and many who have left who are not with us that have and are experiencing religious trauma. I did this study as I said

1:22:41 because there a social gap existed and I want more individuals to be educated on how they can help their clients with these types of situations. Um can I get a question in here? Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So based on your research, if you’re able to answer this, and as much as you are, what kind of Mormon, what kind of member of the church is the most likely to experience the most trauma extricating themselves from the church?

1:23:14 That’s a really good question and and it might be a bit biased because of my experience. Um, however, doing this study, I had to read several other scholarly works. I had to read a lot of information regarding religious trauma. And I will say that there were a couple of themes that popped up. Um, we live in a patriarchal society. Men rule the world and women are not treated fairly by any means, shape or form, not only in society, but especially in church and especially in the LDS religion. And so women experience a lot of religious trauma. And I would say that the LGBTQ plus population experience a lot of religious trauma because of the gender roles and expectations that are set up within the LDS church.

1:24:13 Okay. [clears throat] Thank you. Uh as we start to wrap up here, just a couple of questions left from me. Um, this whole time we’ve spent sort of laying out what it looks like, what kind of actions could cause harm, what kind of symptoms or uh behaviors or feelings, emotional feelings, uh, one might experience as they as they incur trauma uh, within the religion. We’ve named a ton of them.

1:24:53 Mhm. Um, so now let’s spend a moment just talking about like if there’s a believer out there, if just by chance there’s a leader out there who’s listening and goes, “Yeah, I agree. Mormonism has a lot of unhealthy parts that hurt people and I want to do something about that.” Uh, what does the system have to do to change? What what would what would we need to see different going forward from what it is today or used to be in order for people to have a space that they can a take on less trauma and b be able to have spaces where they can process that and work that out and and heal in healthy ways.

1:25:38 I’m going to answer this in, you know, from my own experience and then kind of more from a clinical researcher type of stance. Um, growing up, if I had someone that listened to me, empathized with me, and I could feel loved me for who I am, I I maybe some of my psychological stress would have been reduced by at least 25%. And so I if there is a current leader or someone who is in the LDS church or someone who who is just a a member of the church and and want and agrees with what a lot of has been said today, be empathetic, be loving, let that individual know that you are there for them and that they genuinely can come to you and talk if they need to.

1:26:28 Um, if an institution genuinely wanted to reduce harm, it would require structural change, not just surfal surface level adjustments. The harm in my study wasn’t coming from one specific policy or moment. It was rooted in the broader system. Things like rigid gender roles, heteronormative expectations, and the way worthiness is tied to conformity. Conformity I it to expected behaviors of gender roles. So without addressing these underlining structures, it’s difficult to meaningfully reduce harm um because those are things that shape people’s experiences in the first place. And so you know there are a lot of things that would have to change in the LDS church for individuals to to feel comfortable. But on an individual level, if you can provide love, authenticity, and a safe space for these individuals to go and talk to, you’re starting somewhere.

1:27:27 Yeah. Um I’ve seen numerous local leaders, members do that. I’ve seen just, you know, a a person sort of wakes up to what the church is doing to people and that person I’ve seen bishops and state presidents. I’m thinking of a good friend in Arizona in my head as I say this uh who was in a state presidency and he created a LGBT friendly atmosphere. He had events at his home and he welcomed uh anyone uh from those groups to show up and he offered the safest most accepting validating space.

1:28:04 And for a long time he tried to walk the line of being in the church and loving uh these humans the way they deserve to be loved. Yeah. Um, so I can see it like the individual level it can be done and I’ve watched it happen and kudos to the people in the church who do that. But I struggle I think if if a leadership is unwilling to be accountable to criticism. They’re unable to apologize for their past wrongs.

1:28:33 If they if they say the wrong thing and they just get to move on and never acknowledge it got said. For instance, if a if a doctrine changes or if we take a different historical stance and they never let the uh public the membership know like, hey, we used to think this, we don’t anymore. Here’s why. Here’s what prompted us to change and here’s what we’re doing today. If you have leaders who patriarchy and who think like the buck stops here, I’m an old 80-year-old white man and I get to decide what everybody should do or think.

1:29:08 I struggle to see how the church can ever get there until those things break down. And so it really for me it really is only possible at the individual level. And I agree those yeah I was saying until we see those things change it will never be a church that is a safe space for people who don’t fit in the box. You know what’s disappointing is even trained professionals, therapists who are Mormon, um there were two females that both of them shared different experiences that when they were on their missions, they were feeling suicidal ideiations and the mission president sent them off to a therapist um that was on the mission and both of the Mormon therapists told them that the only way to endure their suicidal ideation is to just get back in and put their feet to the dirt and start working. Completely dismissed those suicidal ideiations. So, it also goes to a level, an individual level of professionals within the church. Um, but again, you know, what you’re talking to, Bill, is the fact

1:30:18 that these things aren’t going to change because the rules are already set in place. I remember as a kid being forced to watch General Conference. Um, and I remember one of the prophets made a comment that um, same gender attraction is never going to change and that will always stay the same. And I remember that being one of the most devastating things I think I ever heard in my childhood. It it just completely obliterated what was going to be my happiness. So what I started doing was training myself to know what it’s like to live being unhappy.

1:30:54 And and sometimes a lot of moments that I do have in my life that are good and happy, it’s hard to experience those. It’s hard to feel warmth of being in front of a fireplace. It’s hard to look outside and see the snow falling and appreciate it for its beauty. And a lot of times that’s what a lot of people who have left the church have to rebuild within themselves. It’s a it’s a strange thing when a professional therapist sides sides with their loyalty to the church and offers a Mormon paradigm approach to therapy.

1:31:35 Yes. so sinister to me because as somebody who’s again I’m I’m I’m as an an hypothetical a person who’s in the throws of it. They believed the church with all their heart and they’re just starting to figure out like oh my goodness this thing did these things to me and it was dishonest and uh I I’m having to sort of deconstruct things and figure it out and they’re right in the beginning stages of that. So they they ask for help and they’re pointed to a therapist who’s also a Mormon. And when you’re believing like that feels like a right answer. I want to see a therapist, but I want the therapist to be Mormon. I want them to help me put the pieces back together. And then rather than doing therapy the way they’ve been trained by an accredited university to do therapy, they instead offer the Mormon answers from their professional seat.

1:32:30 They lead from the bias of their own personal life which is you know for National Association of Social Workers we got a code of ethics and that is just a huge no no. Yeah. And they do it and the harm that person does. It’s one thing when the just the average member treats somebody, excuse my language, shitty because they’re Mormon and give shitty advice. It’s a whole another thing when you go to a professional. and you’re like, “Well, they’re trained and they’ve gone to college and they’ve got a certificate on their wall and they they know these approaches. They help people every day.” And then that person’s like, “Well, you’re not reading your scriptures enough and you’re not praying enough.”

1:33:05 And people in the audience, you might go, “Come on, that doesn’t happen.” It happens. I’ve heard it I’ve heard that story a hundred times at this point. I fasted every single week for two and a half to three years. I I listened to my authorities and what they told me to do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you should have fasted a little longer. Yeah, maybe I would be married with kids by now and living such a happy life.

1:33:31 You totally would. Otherwise, your mission president’s a liar. Yeah. Uh, RFM, I’ve got one more question, but I want to check in and see if you’ve got anything else you wanted to ask, Sam. Um, I don’t think I really don’t think so. I’ve been making a bunch of notes, but mainly I’ve been listening very intently. Then uh I did put the link in the show notes folk not show notes but in the live chat folks if you want to come into the studio and I do see na you’re down there below we’ll go to you here in just a moment um if anybody wants to come into the studio and make a comment to Sam or ask him a question uh please do the link is over there I’ll put it in one more time uh in the live chat so you’ll see that popping up right now my last question for you Sam is having spent all this time being uh trained uh as a therapist therapists going to further your education with with your PhD and your master’s degree and uh all the research that you’ve done here a lot

1:34:30 of the things that you shared tonight what’s one insight of something that you sort of didn’t expect to find or notice something that you learned along the way that’s been uh impactful about how you see religion and how you see human behavior within religion um so I had to specifically hone in on a very specific topic for my study per the international research board and for my topic to be approved. Um but my my sister um was essentially reading through my dissertation and you know she was like I don’t identify as gay but I I really am experiencing a lot of what I identify with as religious trauma and never even realized that I had religious trauma. And she just got in to start seeing a therapist and has been able to process that with her. My ultimate goal is to help individuals realize how they can be their true authentic selves. Um, and that’s been my goal this whole time. And so I didn’t expect to

1:35:39 help my sister re come to terms with that. Um, but it’s also given me insight that just because you don’t identify as a certain demographic doesn’t mean you’re not experiencing some of the same things that that group experienced. And upon doing this study, you know, I I’m a man. Even though I’m a gay man, I I’m going to learn for the rest of my life. And one thing that I appreciated about this study um that I appreciated that was unfortunate was a majority of my participants were female. Um and I learned I I thought woe is me, you know, in my experience at the LDS church. And I want to speak to the fact that I was humbled even yet again with women in the church, what they experience, what they endure. And and I just want to speak to that that you know it there are just things that happen. There are so many things that happen in the LDS church that are unfair. And that was an area that I just had not really fully dived into. And I appreciate that I got that experience. it’ll help me with future

1:36:50 clients, but to just be more even that much more compassionate. Love that. I uh I I try to always have curiosity and uh I hope that all of us can be curious about the world around us. Hence we keep learning, keep testing assumptions and expectations, keep being willing to learn something that changes how we show up in the world and be willing to make those changes. You know, again, uh the adage I try to live by is when you know better, you do better. Um and I appreciate you sharing that. So, thank you. Um we’ve got a couple people down below. I’m going to bring Na on. So, Na, how are you?

1:37:33 I’m all right. I’m all right. How about you guys? It’s fine evening. Excellent. Uh what’s your thoughts uh on tonight’s episode? Questions or comments for Sam? Sam, I’m curious if in your studies, did you notice a pattern toward uh the people that you interviewed if they were had exper or mentioned experiences with feeling that love was a conditional thing. It wasn’t a given even uh from blood, family uh at all if it was actually had to be earned. love was conditional based upon your adherence to following the rules of the church. Um if if I wasn’t paying tithing, you know, I got in trouble for not paying tithing.

1:38:15 Um if I was not reading my scriptures daily on the mission, I was going to miss opportunities to baptize people. Absolutely. I I believe you’d mentioned that you were born in the faith, correct? All right. Did you find that also extended out to your personal family at all or even just maybe members of your family where you felt that that familial love was based upon those conditions of meeting those meeting those faith criteria?

1:38:42 Yeah, absolutely. I mean um I I love my mom and my parents have been very very supportive of me. They both have since left the church um because of how the church treated me. Um, but you know, there was a comment that was made where um, when I broke it off with the girl that I was engaged to, there were several comments about, “Can’t you just make it work? Can’t can’t you just try to extend that engagement to the summer and and see how that works?” And so to me, the message that was being received was, you know, even though it’s so uncomfortable for you to marry a woman, it is part of the faith that you need to be married to a woman. C can you can you just try to make it work?

1:39:31 The bargaining stage, the grief that they have for their their son not measuring up, so to speak. Yeah. Um did that did that answer your question? I I think it did. Um I guess the an extension of that same question would be did you find in relationships that you know uh before you started seeking counseling and such that uh it was easier to express and experience conditional love versus unconditional love?

1:40:02 Oh yeah, absolutely. And and for a lot of participants that was also the same case. Um I would say that it it’s about half where um half of the participants their family is the majority of their family immediate family is still LDS and um a lot of them are not. Um there there’s a married female couple that um she cannot bring her partner around her family whatsoever. She can go there by herself but she can’t go there with her partner. And so that to me speaks of I love you but only if you come as yourself and not as your true authentic self like the the the church self versus um self because essentially I think you know to to be a Mormon you know who may not be fully believing you have to be uh you have to essentially develop two personalities. Yeah.

1:40:58 You have to keep track of those throughout uh your life as you interact with members of the church. Uh, as long as you choose to continue those interactions. Yeah. Yep. Absolutely. It’s it’s like was just stated by Dawn, transactional love. Yeah. Would you agree that the vast majority of Mormons um act as someone other than who they really are? Oh, absolutely. Yes. 100%. I I have Well, I probably shouldn’t speak to that. Um, yes, I do. I I know in my personal life many individuals who, you know, I I know the rules of the church and I know what they’re doing outside of the church. I I keep quiet because I, you know, I don’t I don’t want to judge.

1:41:42 I don’t want to be the person that I used to be and was trained and conditioned to be. But it it is unfortunate that there are a lot of things that I know about individuals and then they go to church on Sunday and behave and act a completely different way. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. The one thing I wanted to push up on you about uh Bill was uh when you were uh trying to remember where uh it had come up. Uh you know what? I can’t remember it now. It’s it was way back in the chat scroll. Um I’d mention uh yeah, I can’t remember.

1:42:22 So, I’ll go ahead and go so other people can get on. if it’s just a matter of taking a second to think through. I’d love to hear your thought. Um maybe put me back down in the queue. Maybe I will and then you think about it and let me know. But and I’ll just say this. Uh we had a second person that was down there waiting to talk, but they aren’t there now. So you’re the only one who’s uh in the show. So if you remember what you’re happy to give you a second to frame your thought.

1:42:48 Uh otherwise I don’t have a way to kind of keep the conversation going. So yeah. Um uh I don’t have it in front of me. I can say something while you’re thinking. Okay, Na. I do the Thanks. I need a good cover. Yeah. So, when I was on my mission, okay, um I got depressed. I had been out in Japan for over a year. And you know, after a year’s worth of rejections, I started feeling it. I started taking it personally. I started getting depressed and um it would have been early spring, early spring of 1981 and I’m feeling really down and coming back to the apartment after uh missionarying and getting rejected all day and just uh curling up in a ball and not really having anything to do with anybody else. And this went on for at least a month or two. And I can’t imagine being in that situation and asking for help and having some social worker telling me, “Well, the solution to your problem is to get out there and get rejected some more.”

1:44:02 [music] What is that catchy tune? It sounds like someone’s alarm for something. Yeah, I was receiving a call. I I don’t know how to No worries. Is it an emergency? Do you need to take it? No, I it’s okay. Okay. Um, but yes, you know, I brought up the love thing since I didn’t hear that come up during this and that seems like one of those things that, you know, uh, I think a good chunk of ex Mormons did experience. So, it just felt like, you know, let’s just get it out there. Um, or see what, you know, what type of research was available from that study.

1:44:43 I thought it was a great question. We seem to have lost our guest, so you’re going to have to fill in now. None yet. you are the guest on the show. I um Oh, terrible. My phone off so that wouldn’t happen again. Thank you. Good idea. Y um were there any any other interesting findings that you had in your study? Uh Mr. uh Dr. Clemens, any other interesting what? Sorry. uh findings, you know, that you that you noticed like were there patterns of like uh God, I don’t want to make an accusation, but were there like higher likelihoods of abuse or there were there were higher likelihoods of high-risk type of behaviors. So, the effects that came from the experiences were turned into kind of extreme behaviors based on how they were treated, what was said to them, the messages that was said to them. Um, I I highlighted a lot of of what individuals experienced. Um, but but a lot of it is that inner turmoil um that was described by a lot of the participants that there for a long time

1:45:57 there was just this inner burning um in in their brains about am I doing the right thing? Am I not doing the right thing? and and how that still comes up in their life and is shown in that pattern. And it’s it’s hard to get away from that. Um, what I had to do is I I pictured like a wiring board and how how the wires are supposed to be, they’re not. They’re very much crossed. And individually, one at a time, you have to work on put on unping that wire and pegging it into its right place. And sometimes it doesn’t fit and you have to work really really hard at it to get it to fit.

1:46:37 Gotcha. Basically sitting there and banging a square peg until it makes it into the round hole if it needs to if it’s really needs to go there. Yeah. Yep. Okay. Um yeah. Did you remember what you wanted to say otherwise? Uh no. I I I couldn’t. So I was trying to be a good sport and be like okay I I need to try to bring something to the conversation. You know you did you contributed heavily. Thank you so much, Nana. I’ll let you go. Okay, take it easy. Goodbye. Bye-bye. See you, Na.

1:47:07 I want before we just close out the show, want to give you a second. You know, I don’t know if you meet people just like in an office one-on-one or if you do Zoom calls to talk to people, but I want to at least give you a chance to share your work, let people know where they can find you and if uh maybe let people know the kind of therapy again that you do and if that needs to be somebody that’s local to where you live or if you uh if you do uh sessions with people that uh via like conference calls or whatnot.

1:47:38 Yeah. So, so me and interestingly enough, um my field supervisor all the way back when I was doing my internship as a as a grad student, her and I are going to um be getting together and and start thinking about um putting together a a a group therapy for individuals who are maybe seeking out spirituality or, you know, reconciliation from the after effects of church. um whatever church it may be. Um I I typically do individual therapy and I do a lot of couples therapy. Um and and I do a lot of uh play therapy and trauma therapy. Um but I I am after having finished the study um and gotten it published, I’m looking to to start doing more group therapies.

1:48:31 So, I would say the best way to probably get a hold of me is is probably through my Gmail. Um, which you are absolutely fine giving that out. Um, since I am a private practice and I’m not great with technology, I I don’t have a website. Um, the name of my private practice is Clemens Creative Counseling. Um, and I as of right now, um, I’m registered and licensed in the state of Idaho. Um, but if if there is anyone who has listened today and feels comfortable and would at least like to have a chat or conversation with me, um, you know, I’m I’m always willing to look in into that.

1:49:09 But I do televide. Um, I I mainly do in-person visits. Um, but I do quite a bit of telev appointments as well. Are you still in Boise? I’m I’m in the Boisee area. I I live in a lovely city called Marsing that I’m trying to escape from. Um only 45 minutes outside of Boisee, but I I work in the Boisee Cuna area. Okay. And I just will say I just now added your email to the show notes. So if somebody does want to get a hold of you, they can go down in the show notes of the episode and your email is the very bottom of that so that folks can reach you.

1:49:47 Uh all right. Um I’m just I wanted to ask about play therapy. I’m just curious what that is. Do I bring my action figures? Do we sit down on the floor and and we’ll play with my old He-Man guys or uh what what do there? How’s that work? So, when I graduated, it was in uh the early 2020. So, lovely COVID. And our agency that I worked at focused on um the refugee demographic, but because of COVID, we ended up venturing out and contracted through middle schools. Um, and I subsequently started seeing teens and kids, which I had not expected to see. And so, um, our the agency I worked for got a grant and I was able to go get fully trained in play therapy. It was almost as if doing another grad school.

1:50:36 It took me two years to do all the training. Um, so now I engage in play therapy modalities and I also teach play therapy at the university that I’m an adjunct professor at. Um, but essentially it’s sand tray. You know, you you have a big sand tray and you ask the client, “Build me a world.” You observe and notice what toys they grab, what scenarios they build. And and with kiddos, it’s a very good backdoor way to communicate and converse and and have them open up to tell you what’s going on in their world.

1:51:08 So, it is usually directed toward children. Typically, yes. But, um, play therapy can be used with any age. That’s cool. I learned something new today. That’s awesome. Well, I want to say thank you, Sam, very much. Again, the email’s down in the show notes, folks. I hope you enjoyed tonight’s episode. Uh Sam, thank you very much. Uh folks, uh let’s see. So, we got tomorrow morning, uh an episode of a logical deconstruction of Mormonism will release at 9:00 a.m. Radio Free Mormon is doing Mormonism After Dark on Friday at 8:00 PM. Uh Saturday, you’ve got an episode coming out, RFM.

1:51:41 I do. Colobby and I are going to sit down and we are going to hate watch Hansen, the guy everybody loves to hate because he got his clock absolutely clean by this gal in in a debate and uh he’s already released at least two episodes. One episode uh explaining why it is that he didn’t get his ass kicked in the debate. And the second one was being on Ward Radio while while they’re all telling him that he didn’t actually get his ass kicked in the debate. It was this wicked evil woman who was lying in wait for him and then just grilled the hell out of him. Which means he wouldn’t answer her freaking question. So he looked like a liar who was ashamed of the religion to which he belongs.

1:52:21 Yeah. Jacob Hansen, a liar who lies. There we go. Well, tune in for that. Sam Clemens, Dr. Clemens, thank you so much for being on tonight and sharing your work. I think all of us who have been in a high demand religion, namely Mormonism, but there’s plenty of others, uh, have incurred some harm. and to be able to have a place where we can talk about it, talk about what kinds of things the the that harm causes and to initiate some of those uh maybe beginning stages of healing and to allow people to process what happened to them.

1:52:50 Kudos to you for coming on and thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Yeah, folks, like and subscribe and please go to Mormonismlive.org. Five or 10 bucks a month donating uh to us helps us to keep doing this work, showing up uh every week with multiple episodes. Radio Free Mormon and myself trying to put out content that both educates on the history of the church, talks about the cultural issues, and does a deep dive on pretty much anything Mormonism that’s happening uh in the world or in the past. Uh so folks, please tune in next Wednesday, 6 p.m.

1:53:22 Mountain time for the next episode of Mormonism Live. Good night, everybody. Good night. [music]