Rewriting Belonging: How Women Reconstruct Identity, Agency, and Community After Spiritual Harm

Drawing on a Classical Grounded Theory study of women's recovery from gender-based religious harm, this presentation examines how women reconstruct belonging, identity, and moral agency following experiences of spiritual coercion, institutional exclusion, and gendered control within high-demand religious environments. The resulting substantive theory, the Discovering Self Framework™, illuminates a nonlinear recovery process through which women move across phases of recognizing woundedness, reclaiming voice, reinhabiting the body, and forming authentic relationships beyond the structures that harmed them. Grounded in the words and lived experiences of study participants, the framework reveals the mechanisms by which agency, embodiment, and moral autonomy are progressively reclaimed. This presentation analyzes the foundational tension between coerced and chosen belonging, situates recovery within broader feminist and public health discourses on gender-based harm, and offers implications for clinicians, researchers, and practitioners working at the intersection of spirituality, trauma, and women's health.