Thread by @ladyjessicahaze

One fascinating part of helping @ACNAtoo publish @steveslagg’s story was discovering a copy of the workbook used in the Redeemed Lives program Steve went through at @ChurchRez in 2009.

Chapter 16 is entitled “Transference” and it is…interesting. 🧵

https://twitter.com/ladyjessicahaze/status/1700866341991821754

(Quick note to say the RL workbook I have is copyright 2002, so I’m not sure if it’s identical to the one Steve would’ve used in 2009. Either way, this thread is a deep dive into the philosophical underpinnings of Rez, so 2002 serves as a good entry point.)

I want to dig into this chapter because I think it provides clues to a theme I see running through so many ex-Rez stories:

If you’re having a negative reaction to a church leader, what you need to do is look deeper inside yourself and figure out what’s wrong with YOU.

The Redeemed Lives workbook is a mishmash of legit psychology, pseudo-psychology, biblical and literary references, anecdotes, etc., all of which the author has woven together to construct a working psycho-spiritual framework for understanding and healing “sexual brokenness.”

This conglomerate framework is particularly dangerous because the legitimate parts endow it with an air of credibility that allows the author to insert his own highly speculative takes to direct the conversation to exactly the places he needs it to go.

I have no reason to believe that this was done with ill intent, and I default to assuming the author’s conclusions are sincere. This makes them no less dangerous, as Steve’s story and other accounts demonstrate.

acnatoo.org/diocese-of-the…

Important caveats before I start: I am not a psychology professional and I did not attend Rez, let alone go through Redeemed Lives. So these are the observations of a Rez-adjacent non-psychologist, and those with deeper insight into either realm are encouraged to chime in.

Also, Redeemed Lives is no longer an active ministry at Rez. However, longtime and recent Rez attendees can attest to the fact that the teachings RL promoted have been repackaged and live on today, making their origins that much more important to examine.

Redeemed Lives’ teachings on gender and sexuality can be found in their current form in the @ChurchRez sermon series “Fully Alive.”

churchrez.org/sermon_series/…

But this thread isn’t about those teachings. It’s about the interwoven psychology that helped form today’s Rez leaders back in the days when, as Steve notes, “moving through RL seemed to be an unofficial prerequisite to any type of pastoral ministry at Rez.”

On to the workbook.

Chapter 16 starts off with what seems to be a decent definition of transference.

And in a moment of what feels like dramatic irony, it even suggests that we “may have been attracted to a particular fellowship because it mirrored some of the dysfunction in our family of origin.”

But it also introduces this concept, which is a contextual through line of the chapter: “We may misperceive the Church as having the same dysfunctional issues as our family of origin.”

In other words: if you have an issue with someone at church, maybe it’s about you, not them.

To be clear, this is a totally legitimate and important consideration. We should all be aware of our tendencies to overreact to other people’s words or actions.

The next section harkens back to previous chapters on gender and is, in my opinion, just rather esoteric and bizarre.

It’s also outside the scope of this thread, other than to say that it adds a lot of confusing layers to the idea of transference that I am going to guess are primarily the author’s own interpretations and not a part of the mainstream literature on the subject.

Moving on. The next bit suggests that if we “persist in resisting seeing” our transferences, Redeemed Lives can’t help us and we need to get professional therapy. This is an odd interjection. Were participants notified in advance that RL is “level 2” therapy, not for beginners?

Or is the implication that Redeemed Lives is a good place to start, but if you prove to be so deeply resistant that you aren’t making progress, then you’ll need remedial help? Given that participants are in week 16 of a 26-week commitment, it seems a bit late to bring this up.

This section also establishes that some transferences come from pre-cognitive wounds, so we can’t get to the bottom of them by examining our memories. We can only observe our intense reactions in the present and extrapolate re: transference.

Not necessarily untrue. However.

There are some missing considerations here, and throughout.

Sometimes we react negatively to someone due to transference. Other times we react negatively because someone is triggering a wound by legitimately treating us in the same harmful ways someone did in our past.

Still other times, we react negatively to someone simply because our gut tells us something is off.

In this entire chapter there’s no mention of the fact that sometimes a negative reaction to someone is precisely the type of reaction we should be having. Put a pin in that.

Next comes a discussion of “positive transference.” Psychology professionals can evaluate how well the author describes this phenomenon, but essentially he’s saying we can tend to idealize people who provide love and care we may have been missing in our formative years. True.

When we idealize someone, this generally leads to disappointment as we begin to see their flaws, at which point we may flip to the opposite extreme, and vilify them. Hence, positive transference is a gateway to negative transference.

This all makes sense, but note that it can also provide a convenient basis for church leaders to point fingers back at lay people who have negative reactions to them: “You idolized me, then you realized I was human; that’s on you and your transference, not me and my behavior.”

Note specifically: “Or the language we use to describe their behavior toward us might be the same language we use to describe someone who abused us in the past. We may suddenly view them as all bad and dangerous not only to us, but also to others.”

This is a line of thought that can easily be used to invalidate claims of spiritual or emotional abuse in pastoral settings: “I didn’t abuse that person; I was trying to help them process abuse from their childhood and they transferred their issues onto me.”

Speaking of spiritual abuse, it also seems important to note that sometimes idealization itself is driven by a pastoral figure and the way they execute their role, and unhealthy or narcissistic leaders in particular tend to evoke idolizing responses from those in their care.

A healthy authority figure in a mentorship role will be on alert for positive transference and deal with it proactively, whereas an unhealthy mentor might bask in it and encourage it, and an abusive mentor will tend to cultivate it intentionally as part of the grooming process.

Positive transference, says the workbook, leads to negative transference leads to possible countertransference on the part of the other person.

Concepts of judgment and forgiveness are introduced. All of this seems unobjectionable in broad strokes.

Again, though, note the potential for this to go very wrong if a lay person has an issue with a church leader: “When we are in a negative transference we are not the right person to inform the object of our transference about his or her faults.”

Who’s to say what’s transference?

Next: “Psychological resistance is akin to Biblical hypocrisy and has at least four neurotic functions.”

Before we get to the neurotic functions, there’s a disturbing reference to Freud and his “treatment of many neurotics.”

“This phenomenon [of psychological resistance] made on [Freud] the deepest impression of all, giving him ‘the feeling that there is a force at work that defends itself with all possible means against cure and that obstinately clings to illness and suffering.’”

I’m not sure what era of Freud’s work is referenced here, but I want to note that in his early career Freud did extensive work with “hysterics,” who were “neurotic” women displaying symptoms of what we’d now call PTSD. In fact, Freud dug in hard and figured out what was wrong.

He found that virtually all of his “hysterical” patients had suffered childhood sexual abuse, a discovery that became a centerpiece of his studies until social backlash caused him to abandon this research, turn on his own patients, and effectively blame them for their abuse.

You can read the whole terrible saga in Chapter One of Judith Herman’s Trauma and Recovery, but the upshot is that I take Freud with a giant grain of salt, particularly when he talks about his patients resisting treatment, given his habit of gaslighting sexual abuse survivors.

This part about Freud, per Chapter 16’s bibliography, comes from the author of a 1986 book entitled “On the Origins and Treatment of Homosexuality: A Psychoanalytical Reinterpretation.” That’s a pile of red flags too obvious to warrant further commentary.

To be fair to the workbook author, a lot of people who should know better still cite Freud as if he wasn’t a ridiculously problematic figure with a lot of patently silly theories. Nevertheless, this is all an incredibly shaky basis for discussing “psychological resistance.”

Now for the four “neurotic functions” of this resistance:

1. Resistance denies that the transference has turned negative.
2. Resistance serves as a defense against uncovering repressed issues.
3. Resistance scapegoats the person being transferred upon.

And then this gem:

4. Resistance gives legitimacy to the whine behind the self-pitying, complaining inner child.

Again, actual therapists should feel free to speak into this, but this one strikes me as deeply calloused, and no less so in light of the Freudian framing just preceding it.

To back up for a moment: the Redeemed Lives program at large revolved around the idea that, as Steve explains in his story (and the Redeemed Lives workbook corroborates), homosexuality and other so-called “sexual brokenness” is the result of unhealed childhood wounds.

While this idea of the origins of homosexuality is now debunked and thoroughly rejected by mainstream psychology, it was once a very popular theory.

And of course the one thread of truth in it is that childhood trauma can result in all types of actual relational dysfunctions.

In fact, this concept of our “inner child” is one counselors often use to good effect to help clients gain perspective on the harm they suffered in their formative years.

This does not include pointing fingers at “the whine behind the self-pitying, complaining inner child.”

The ethos of “inner child work,” in my experience and research and conversations with experts, involves developing more compassion for your childhood self by recognizing that you were not in a position as a kid to defend yourself against the harm caretakers and others did you.

And while kids certainly do complain about things they will ultimately need to learn to just deal with, this is a deeply disturbing framing to use in light of actual childhood trauma.

It is not “self-pitying” or “whiny” to react negatively to family dysfunction or abuse.

This is almost the end of Chapter 16, so let’s plough through the rest.

We might identify that we are psychologically resistant to dealing with our transference issues if we have “moved from therapist to therapist or from locality to locality or have church-hopped.”

Perhaps. But as with the missing considerations mentioned above, this is only one of many possible explanations for why we might have left previous therapy/church/geographical situations.

Maybe the actual discussion in RL covered this, and it’s simply missing from the workbook?

Overall, the topic of transference is an incredibly delicate one, and like any psychological concept it shouldn’t be applied in a therapeutic setting without proper context and caveats. It’s only one very limited lens through which to consider our reactions to other people.

I don’t have to be a psych professional to recognize that if the theory of transference is overused or misapplied, as is likely to happen in a cursory treatment of it in a group therapy setting, it can easily lead to haphazard and detrimental self-assessments.

So when the author says up front that you need therapy if you won’t face your transferences in RL, this implies that in most cases you can just do this work on your own, or in a small group, without the expert oversight of someone who really understands your story and context.

By contrast, a well-trained therapist or spiritual director meeting with someone one on one over a period of time would be able to help the person being counseled to sort out what could be transference, what probably isn’t, and how to approach all of this with discernment.

Now we arrive at the solutions part of the chapter.

How do we break free from our transference habits?

“Stay put. Don’t move. Consider the fact that maybe someone sees the log in our eye, which we cannot see because it is blinding us (while hitting others over the head).”

Again, maybe. But this is dangerous general advice that once again fails to acknowledge that there are situations where we should absolutely NOT stay put.

“Gird up our loins and take a leap of faith to trust others.”

“Face the fears of being abandoned or misled by someone.”

“Embrace humility and consider that perhaps, in this case, the perceptions of others are more accurate than our own.”

“Confess our sins of scapegoating and blaming others.”

“Press into our issues with the people in the past who really hurt us. These are the people we really don’t trust and are angry with.”

Again: yes? But also: maybe not?

Given the Redeemed Lives context, what are the potential implications of these “how to break free” steps?

Redeemed Lives/Rez is a safe place; have faith and lean in.
Others have abandoned/misled you; we won’t.
Your perspective is flawed; accept ours.
You may have negative feelings; they’re not about us.
You may be tempted to scapegoat/blame us; if so, confess and repent.

It might seem like I’m stretching here, and if I lacked all context outside of the workbook that could be a fair criticism. But I’ve heard one too many stories about Rez and other high-control church environments for me not to recognize a veritable rubric for spiritual abuse.

That’s the end of the chapter, except for these group discussion questions.

“This is not to be a time for discussing when others have transferred onto you, it is about when you have transferred onto others.”

These exercises may seem innocuous on their face.

But this is part of a bigger picture in which we are being told to “stay put” (at Rez and Redeemed Lives), shush our “self-pitying” inner child, investigate any negative reactions we’re having to those around us, and frame these reactions in terms of our own deficiencies.

And I would suggest, again, that the topic of transference is far too delicate simply to send people into the deep end with only this much introduction, especially without any discussion of how transference is only one lens through which to view our negative reactions.

Again, there are threads of truth running through this chapter and these exercises, and couched in a healthy framework some of it could certainly be productive.

As presented, though, and as reflected in various accounts, it lends itself to both misdiagnosis and spiritual abuse.

How does this factor into Steve’s story? There is no point in the story as it’s written where a leader says to him in so many words, “Steve, you’re transferring your childhood wounds onto me.”

But the themes are all there, between the lines.

While Steve has serious, well-founded reservations about Redeemed Lives, he does what the RL workbook would recommend when encountering your own “psychological resistance”: he takes a “leap of faith” and leans in, after a highly persuasive conversation with Fr. Stewart.

When Steve balks at the blatantly problematic material in the program, he nevertheless “stays put,” as the RL workbook also mandates, doing his best to entertain the “perceptions of others” and shake loose any legitimate “psychological resistance” that might be clinging to him.

RL drags him so far down this rabbit hole of self examination that he spirals into profound existential self doubt.

“Perhaps my own neurosis was so deep that I was like the emperor with no clothes — not only unaware of the truth, but unaware of how unaware I was.”

When he nonetheless cannot in good faith accept these teachings, and tries to address this with Fr. Keith, Keith treats him with “gentle exasperation, the kind you might use with a sullen teenager.”

Or as the workbook might say, a “self-pitying, complaining inner child.”

In the eyes of the Rez leaders, Steve is one of those people who, as the RL workbook says, “persist in resisting seeing” their neuroses. Ultimately, therefore, they cannot help him.

But in fact, for all its psych language, RL is arguably not about healing your inner child.

It is about accepting, as Steve learned, that you have “a perception of reality that is so deeply broken that you have no direct access to revelation from God about your true, created self. You must disbelieve everything you believe to be true about yourself and trust instead…

…this narrow, specific teaching, developed in the Western Suburbs of Chicago in the 1990s, relying heavily on data that has been disproven by numerous reputable scientific bodies. If you doubt that we have your best interest in mind, that is also due to your neurosis.”

Which comes full circle to how easy it is to weaponize the concept of transference. When people won’t accept that their “psychological resistance” to your teachings is a problem with them, you can simply write them off as unwilling to be healed.

And while the RL workbook asks participants to consider others’ perspectives when they’re experiencing psychological resistance, Rez leaders make it clear to Steve that that does not include the perspectives of those who deviate from the narrow teachings Steve is resisting.

Which illuminates a key difference between professional therapy, including many group therapies, and Redeemed Lives. RL had an incredibly circumscribed framework for healing. If you did not accept that framework essentially wholesale, the upshot was, “well, we can’t help you.”

Whereas if you go to a good therapist to address your childhood wounds and find healing, that therapist will not tell you what to believe. They will be frustratingly reticent, asking open-ended questions that facilitate you to discover solutions that actually work for YOU.

And while Chapter 16 maybe sort of recommends professional therapy (?), Chapter 21 expresses concerns, saying, “Psychology has been called the cult of self-worship.”

“Narcissistic people love to be in therapy. We get to talk about ourselves for an entire hour each week.”

When you combine that with the premise that being gay is rooted in narcissism, it brings us right back to the Steve Problem, to which there is, in the end, only the Redeemed Lives Solution.

Stay put. Have faith. Accept our perspective. Your negative reactions are all about you.

Again, I didn’t go through RL. But I’ve encountered similar skepticism from peers and elders when, like Steve, I insisted on thinking for myself: insinuations that I was just not being honest — when in fact, at my most honest, I just couldn’t agree with a certain framework.

I wanted to write this thread because this type of gaslighting at Rez is real, and ongoing, and Redeemed Lives and its offshoot teachings have been formative for so many people, including very young adults seeking mentorship, spiritual formation, and therapeutic healing.

And these experiences themselves are diverse and complicated. So many people have found real healing and growth in this setting, while so many others encountered incredible harm — and, most disorientingly, as in Steve’s case, many people experienced both.

So this thread is a collection of observations from a very-adjacent outsider, drawing connections between the philosophical underpinnings of Rez and the stories I see coming out of it, in hopes of facilitating discussion among those directly impacted by all of this. Have at it.