Spiritual Bypass: Escapism and Resistance to Change

In 1984, John Welwood, a psychotherapist and transpersonal psychologist, coined the term 'spiritual bypass'. From the perspective of contemporary psychotherapy, spiritual bypass can be seen as avoidance of facing the pain and emptiness that a person experienced in their life. This pain, however, is locked within their internal world as the residue of past trauma, predominantly developmental or childhood trauma.

Spiritual bypass is a form of compensation for a person's lack of sense of self. It typically indicates an unconscious attachment to trauma and resistance towards resolving it—all to avoid the pain of finding oneself completely lost.

Resistance to Resolving Trauma

Spiritual bypass involves the use of supposed spiritual practices and spirituality so that a person can, mainly unconsciously, avoid the pain and hurt left by the past trauma.

Trauma, however, is not necessarily overt—for instance abuse. More often, it takes more subtle forms. If, as a child, someone experienced neglect, emotional abuse, gaslighting, or feeling unseen; or, for instance, if they were left to their own devices, or having to attend to the needs of their over-consuming caregivers - the trauma may be quiet but devastating.

Childhood trauma may cause distress in adulthood. This is often experienced through symptoms, such as anxiety, depression, feelings of internal emptiness, meaninglessness, boredom, eating disorders, addiction, etc. 

Or it may have an adverse effect on relationships. For instance, in the form of withdrawal, avoidance, and distancing, experience of abandonment, difficulties with commitment, excessive clinging and neediness, rejecting others or fearing rejection, etc.

Attachment to Trauma

Painful traumatic events, especially those that occurred during childhood and which most often are not even remembered anymore, may cause the development of the so-called attachment to trauma.

Attachment to trauma is an unconscious emotional investment, a tie to traumatic experiences that have not been psychologically worked through and resolved. These experiences linger and drift unmetabolised within the psyche, causing distress that cannot be tied to trauma directly.

The purpose of the attachment to trauma is for the psyche to make sense of these split-off experiences and resolve them through constant re-enactments in the present.

The most vivid example is when a person finds themselves re-enacting the same pattern in every relationship—for instance, being mistreated, rejected, underappreciated, left, cheated, etc. This process goes on outside of awareness and fuels a perpetual loop, often with a self-sabotaging, even self-destructive, effect. 

Attachment to trauma can manifest itself in the lack of sense of self, poor sense of self-worth, lack of self-esteem, excessive self-criticism and self-blame.

This will tend to include some form of a re-enactment of the original trauma in the present. For instance, through recurring negative experiences in relationships, such as continuous experience of rejection, excessive interpersonal dependency or codependency, excessive self-sufficiency, issues with authority, the need for a guide or a mentor, overinvestment in achievements, excessive need for social recognition, or clinging in relationships. It may also come up as a lack of trust, or an experience of constantly being manipulated.

Giving Trauma Its Meaning and Purpose

When trauma occurs in childhood or infancy, a child will try to make sense of it. The child cannot do this alone, so the attempt normally fails. What remains, unfortunately, is a sense of internal confusion, directionlessness, meaninglessness, emptiness and despair. Spiritual bypass is an unconscious attempt to make sense of past unresolved traumatic experiences and a substitute for the lack of identity caused by such experiences.

Trauma, in reality, has no purpose or meaning. It is painful and unfair. Spiritual bypass helps give trauma the purpose and meaning that it lacks. It is a form of escapism from the uncomfortable experiences and gives some context to the pain.

The underlying belief, normally, is that as long as a person keeps attempting to resolve their childhood trauma, they may someday succeed. This keeps their hopes alive and creates a sense of control over the pain.

However, beneath the surface of consciousness lies a different reality. Spiritual bypass does not help resolve trauma—paradoxically, it keeps it alive. On the surface, it may give trauma some meaning and purpose. In reality, it maintains the internal emotional attachment to trauma.

Through the misuse of spirituality, a person can forever remain attached to trauma. They may continuously contemplate about it, search for new meanings, or dwell on the fantasy of its resolution. The unconscious purpose of this is to forever continue to resolve it but never really succeed.

Trauma as an Auxiliary Identity

Childhood trauma has an adverse effect on the development of identity and the sense of self. Paradoxically, however, trauma itself can become a compensatory mechanism to defend against the experience of the lack of identity.

At times this may result in trauma becoming a large part of our sense of self, forming an auxiliary identity of a 'trauma survivor'. And, because such auxiliary identity uses trauma as its backbone, the resolution of trauma could result in the loss of identity, leaving the person in a state of emptiness, directionlessness, confusion, futility, or even fragmentation or nothingness.

Spiritual bypass maintains the identity of a 'trauma survivor' and helps avoid the underlying pain and emptiness. It may leave a person focused on endless internal work, dwelling on the past, and detaching themselves from the present-day reality, all under the illusion of personal development (see also Sovatsky, 1998). It is a form of avoiding deeper emotional difficulties and disengaging from the internal and external realities, including from meaningful relationships.

Spiritual retreats and unprofessional use of psychedelics are a practical implementations of spiritual bypassing. On the conscious level, they may be seen as getting in touch with trauma. However, in practice, we often see that these experiences are not accompanied by the resolution of the underlying trauma.

By experiencing awareness, a person may be left believing that this is an effective way of tackling their internal issues. They may be left in a state that has a flavour of euphoria or hypomania. This often comes with a sense of omnipotence and control over life, which helps a person escape their deeper sense of powerlessness and directionlessness.

Avoidance of Change in Psychotherapy and Sabotage of the Psychotherapeutic Process

Through psychotherapy, one may realise how heavily invested they are in maintaining their negative self-image, re-enacting unhealthy relational patterns, remaining infantile and dependent, or resorting to isolation and alienation. But they may also learn the reasons behind such attachment to destruction and self-sabotage. Therapy allows for the attachment to trauma to be brought into awareness and resolved.

However, the resolution of internal conflicts and letting go of trauma brings up difficult feelings. These may range from experiences of abandonment, aloneness, helplessness and hopelessness, meaninglessness and purposelessness, a sense of internal emptiness or void, a sense of destruction of life and future, or pain of letting go of relationships.

Because the resolution of trauma follows a path of grieving and letting go, psychotherapy can leave a person in the difficult position of needing to come to terms with reality—which is often perceived as bleak. Internal change may lead towards personal autonomy and a new perception of reality, which may be too daunting to face.

Unconsciously, there may be resistance to coming to terms with reality and the person continues to maintain their ties to trauma. This may either be through cognitive intellectualisation and endless dwelling over the devastation and pain left by the trauma. Or, a person may sabotage the therapeutic process by resorting to the misuse of spirituality to keep the illusion of working-through alive forever. Accordingly, spiritual bypass is used as an unconscious resistance to the psychotherapeutic treatment (see also Cashwell et al., 2010).

And it is not only spirituality that may be misused for the purpose of escapism. Similar may be the case with positive psychology, mindfulness, philosophy, or the use of psychedelics. Whilst these techniques can be helpful for one's personal development, there is an issue when they are unconsciously misused to avoid change.

Ales Zivkovic, MSc (TA Psych), CTA(P), PTSTA(P), Psychotherapist, Counsellor, Supervisor

Ales Zivkovic is a psychotherapist, counsellor, and clinical supervisor. He holds an MSc in Transactional Analysis Psychotherapy awarded by Middlesex University in London. He is also a Provisional Teaching and Supervising Transactional Analyst (PTSTA-P) and a Certified Transactional Analyst in the field of Psychotherapy (CTA-P). Ales gained extensive experience during his work with individuals and groups in the UK National Health Service (NHS) and his private psychotherapy, counselling, and clinical supervision practice in central London, UK. He was also a member of the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP). Ales works with individuals, couples, and groups. In clinical setting, he especially focuses on the treatment of issues of childhood trauma, personality disorders, and relationship issues. A large proportion of his practice involves online psychotherapy as he works with clients from all over the world. Ales developed a distinct psychotherapeutic approach called interpretive dynamic transactional analysis psychotherapy (IDTAP). More about Ales, as well as how to reach him, can be found here.

References:

Cashwell, C. S., Glosoff, H. L., & Hammond, C. (2010). Spiritual bypass: A preliminary investigation. Counseling and Values, 54(2), 162–174. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2161-007X.2010.tb00014.x

Sovatsky, S. (1998). Words from the soul: Time, east/west spirituality, and psychotherapeutic narrative. State University of New York Press.