022: Creating and Validating a Spiritual Abuse Assessment with Lianna Chong

Broken to Beloved Podcast

Can you really ever know when you’ve experienced spiritual abuse by church leaders and organizations? Victims and survivors are so often manipulated and gaslit that they question their own memories and experiences.

This is the work Organizational Psychologist Lianna Chong is setting out to complete. Through her work with the Spiritually Abusive Leadership & Climate Survey, she is hoping to have quantifiable and scientifically validated research and hard data.

The survey measures areas like abuse of power, emotional manipulation and abuse, defend and attack (based on DARVO and gaslighting), and psychological safety.

This research will be completed in two rounds, with the first running from Nov–Dec 2024, and a second round in early 2025. The minimum goal is 300 completed surveys, with a full goal of 600.

Would you be willing to complete the survey? It’s all scaled multiple choice (strongly agree – strongly disagree), and takes about 10-15 minutes to complete. It’s fully anonymous (with a few demographic questions), and all online. You can complete it on your phone or computer.

[ take the Spiritually Abusive Leadership & Climate Survey ]

Get the full show notes and links here. 📄

Guest Spotlight

Lianna is an organizational psychologist with experience in ministry and secular organizations. She is passionate about helping teams and leaders create environments where people can bring their best self to work. She provides training and consultation on compassion fatigue, burnout, organizational change, and psychological safety. Recently, Lianna has pivoted her focus to helping people recognize spiritually abusive leadership and promote healthier church cultures.

Lianna has a Master of Arts in Organizational Psychology, a Master of Theological Studies, and is a Certified Fearless Organization Scan (FOS) practitioner. In addition to consulting, she has served as Adjunct Faculty at William James College teaching quantitative and qualitative assessment.

Website | Substack | Instagram

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Broken to Beloved is a 501(c)3 nonprofit that works to provide those wounded by spiritual abuse and religious trauma with practical resources moving toward healing and wholeness, and to provide pastors and church leaders with resources to grow in trauma awareness and implement safeguarding practices. Get more information or give a tax-free donation here.
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