Apostates - a hidden population for potential trauma and abuse - with Hari Parekh

Jingle Guy (: 00:12

(singing)

Dr Marianne Trent (: 00:30

Hi, welcome along to The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast. Thank you for listening and thank you for being part of my world. Today is episode 43 and I will level with you. This episode was always going to be happening, but this is not quite the episode I had planned. But the one I had planned is coming soon, but there's just been a slight delay. But I am today using some old footage, but it's really an incredible interview that I'd done and really very interesting. And it's with Hari Parekh and he is now a third year trainee, whereas when we met to do the interview. I believe he was getting interviews for training. He might well have just been told he had a place on training actually.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 01:31

So it was interesting to listen back to this episode because I think I've become a better podcaster over the last couple of years and just it feels like a lot has changed in my life since then. So I've just checked and we got this published in May 2020. So it's coming up almost two and a half years ago, probably, since we filmed it, and loads has changed. What we know is that we were in a much earlier stage of the pandemic at that time and I was filming on my NHS laptop at that time and then it all got stuck on there and we couldn't get it off so we could only get the sound off. So despite the fact we had filmed ourselves, it was stuck and so we couldn't access the video and so it was just audio only.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 02:38

And we're keeping audio only today because I don't have any additional video, but you can definitely watch it on YouTube if you do like to access your podcasts that way. There will be a blog post coming soon as well, but it's not quite ready yet, but it will be coming soon. So I thought this was a really interesting episode to bring to your awareness as aspiring psychologists because the term apostate wasn't one that I was aware of and it's a hidden research population but also potentially a hidden trauma population too. So I won't say too much more about it, but I hope you find this really interesting and really inspiring. So I will catch you on the other side.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 03:29

Right. Hi, I'm Dr. Marianne Trent and I'm a clinical psychologist. I've got a keen interest in research and I spotted some really interesting research just yesterday actually, and it got me very excited and so I reached out to the person that's written the research and he's here with me today. I'll let him introduce himself.

Hari Parekh (: 03:51

Hi, my name is Hari Parekh. I wrote the research study on Apostates as a Hidden Population of Abuse Victims, which was published in January of this year. I've got around four years experience working in psychology. So yeah, I've got my stripes.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 04:10

Okay. Oh, honestly, I'm so excited to speak to you. I predominantly worked in adult mental health but also children and families. So I was surprised to learn of a really big interesting word that I had no idea what it is, even to look at it on paper, [inaudible 00:04:28], I don't even know how to say that. Can you take us through what it is?

Hari Parekh (: 04:32

So apostate is a big word and it's a term used by the religious to describe people raised within religious families who once identified as religious but now ceased to believe in the existence of God, Gods or follow that religious belief and then they now identify as non-religious. So it's the people that have gone from being religious to non-religious.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 05:01

Okay. So there's not like a tick box option on forms that we see as yet saying apostate, apostate, but it's you go for no religion or [inaudible 00:05:14]-

Hari Parekh (: 05:13

Yeah, you go for no religion, you go for atheist or you go through other. I think it's one of those terms which isn't really widely used or really widely recognised. It's kind of used as a label used by the religious to negatively sometimes associate somebody with that word. But the people that have gone through that process seem to have taken it on themselves and own the word.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 05:39

Yeah, okay. So that they're owning it, they're doing it, but it's actually originally was a derogatory term.

Hari Parekh (: 05:44

Derogatory term. [inaudible 00:05:46].

Dr Marianne Trent (: 05:46

Right. That's interesting. Perhaps we need to think about rebranding it, but I guess whatever it is for now is just important that we talk about it. And for me, who's a qualified clinical psychologist who have never heard of this term, I'm also excited to learn new terms and new things, but it feels like something I should have known about.

Hari Parekh (: 06:09

See, I don't think you should have done, and I think that's the beauty of it in that this is the problem with hidden populations in that nobody should know. Nobody would know that this exists within normal kind of consensus and normal kind of conversations, in the same way that all those years ago, nobody knew that domestic violence was a thing. Nobody knew that sexual violence was a thing or honour-based violence was a thing. And it's the same rhetoric in going, it's not a hindrance on any professional to not know what it is when, for example, this is the first time the academic sphere can actually point themselves to an academic piece to say this exists.

Hari Parekh (: 06:47

So I would never say that a professional should have known it. If anything, what it does is it adds to the professional repertoire of any professional working in the field to go, "Oh, hang on a minute, are we missing something out?" And that's the conversation which I'm sure you're interested in. So yeah, no worries about not knowing it. But your beauty of being a professional is that once you do know it, you're like, "Ooh!"

Dr Marianne Trent (: 07:16

I love that I know it. So thank you for introducing that to my consciousness. But also it will be something that I honestly, sincerely will take with me to think about with clients regardless of their faith or current faith. I guess having read your research, everybody should, very interesting, it was really is-

Hari Parekh (: 07:40

[inaudible 00:07:40].

Dr Marianne Trent (: 07:40

For me, it's so important to think about family systems but also family backgrounds. So you said that actually people who cast themselves in apostate and took part in your research had experienced violence from family members because of that.

Hari Parekh (: 08:00

Precisely. And it's the same issues that you have interfamilial kind of family violence, is that kind of area where these victims are being, as they're kind of terms go, they're being assaulted, they're being seriously assaulted and they're being psychologically abused. The difference between the assault and the serious assault is the difference between pushed and shoved to being threatened to be killed or being threatened to be harmed with like a knife or a gun or something, say more serious than that, and psychological abuse contains the plethora of things like corrosive control, stress, depression, isolation, neglect, all of those kind of terms as well, which we see within the clinical framework when we work...

Hari Parekh (: 08:43

I've got experience working with people that have been through domestic violence and it's very similar notions of the things that they've gone through. So yeah, it's bringing on a seriousness in the fact that leaving a religious faith or making that decision that this perspective might not be for you has consequences that are very extreme and we need to be very aware of actually within certain frameworks, how is this working when they're going to the GP, when families going to the GP with their child, when they're going to hospital, when they're seeing a nurse and they're seeing a midwife in all these kind of different areas or when they go to school.

Hari Parekh (: 09:25

We only have to look at the cases, the case studies of things like Victoria Climbié, Baby P., Daniel Pelka in Coventry, Sarbjit and Surjit Athwal or Shafi Armed and look at the honour-base violence within that all the different cultural and traditional issues and go, people in positions of powers struggle to question that. Why did they struggle with that, and actually what's related to that? We've only just got to the point now where we've got systems in place for professionals to do that and I'm basically saying, "Hi, you need to add another one into that remit and here's something sadly for professionals, here's another angle that we need to be aware of because we-"

Dr Marianne Trent (: 10:10

Another thing for us to think about on our training, but really important to think about.

Hari Parekh (: 10:15

Because you could imagine them going to the GP with their parent or with their carer and having gone through all of this stuff and not being able to voice it. It's the same way as women aren't able to voice about rape or not able to voice about sexual violence or domestic violence and how do we allow that to happen again, really?

Dr Marianne Trent (: 10:34

Yeah. One of my clinical specialties is become working with people who've been traumatised either through Type I trauma, so something extreme like a explosion or something like that. But also Type II traumas, which would be kind of stuff that adds up that is smaller stuff or joined up or developmental trauma, so stuff from their childhood, first 18 years of life. I don't know if you're aware of it, but there's a scale that is widely used in trauma populations called the ACE, so the Adverse Childhood Experiences scale. And when I was reading your research, I guess I was wondering whether the people who were in your survey, whether if they'd been ACEd before, it's possibly in over future research, how high their ACE score would have been anyway? So whether they're more likely to become an apostate to turn away from a family that's always been quite scary and quite controlling or whether actually, maybe they're ACE score to the first 18 years of life, maybe they're ACE score was zero, but then the reaction to leaving the faith has evoked this violence. Do you see what I mean?

Hari Parekh (: 11:48

Yeah. I think the complication of this with an ACE would be the it's not necessarily that it will always be through adverse childhood experiences that somebody would therefore leave. For example, you could go through childhood completely fine and maybe then decide that actually this perspective isn't for me. But the childhood was completely fair. There were no complications there and you could be an 18 year old going, this isn't for me. We also know of people within Jehovah's Witness communities who there was an 80 year old lady that left at 80, and she's like, "I'm finally able to leave," for example. So the ACE would perhaps not figure out the intricacies of what constitutes somebody leaving because the horror is massive.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 12:44

I wonder whether it might have some predictive power for thinking about what the familial reaction would be though. So it might not necessarily be-

Hari Parekh (: 12:52

Maybe.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 12:52

... a contributor to them wanting to become an apostate, but whether or not it might be predictive for the violence or the hostility.

Hari Parekh (: 13:02

True. I think that what we found and what we find is that it's whether somebody makes the public announcement that they've left, whichever religious denomination, if they leave, it's primarily focused on what's going to be the reaction of the family when they do it. So some people care about the reaction quite a lot or some people go, "You know what, I need to make the call and I'm done." For the people that take a lot more thought into the reaction of other people, there's a concern as to going, you're making a decision based on you but you are adding all these factors involved to make sure that the decision I'm making legitimate, they weigh in.

Hari Parekh (: 13:44

And that ACE would then have a bit of power to it then or bit of strength to it to go, well, actually if the household, the factors within it are threatening towards somebody leaving in that way, then maybe there's something in that where they would suggest that they would remain within such practises or they wouldn't challenge it or they'd find that they couldn't, which would be really useful information. Again, future research isn't it? That's the joy [inaudible 00:14:13] research.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 14:14

I'd seen that in your paper, you'd referenced it to almost be being like coming out if somebody's coming out to their family about their sexuality and likened that disclosure as becoming an apostate.

Hari Parekh (: 14:30

Yeah, because interestingly the notions of gender and sexuality and the way that is concentrated upon within religious households or religious communities and the way that that's perceived, especially if you identify as part of the LGBTQ+ range, that there's a complication there of how people might react to that. Now the severity that that could bring is very similar to an apostate coming out because the sad thing is, is that scriptures don't provide any leniency and neither do community structures and [inaudible 00:15:10] your family structures either. So the severity [inaudible 00:15:13]-

Dr Marianne Trent (: 15:13

[inaudible 00:15:13] surprised to see your appendices at the end of the research with the bits of scripture from different faiths, literally saying what should happen to people who look elsewhere for religion?

Hari Parekh (: 15:26

And that's only a snapshot. And that was only... I think I had two or three pages before I brought it to Vince, who's the second, who was my supervisor, and he was just like, "You need to cut that down. You just pick the [inaudible 00:15:39]." But again-

Dr Marianne Trent (: 15:40

There's always more to say, isn't there? But the word can doesn't allow it.

Hari Parekh (: 15:44

Precisely. And I think that we can't get away from the fact that it's written in way where leniency is not there for making such decision and we have to be aware of that. But to be fair, just because it's written doesn't mean we have to do. So again, it's looking at human reaction and it's looking at with the CFT model for example, you're looking at the threat systems of people that you're then approaching, you're looking at the way that people react to news that they weren't expecting and factoring that is probably the biggest part of this.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 16:20

Yeah. So if we could have mental health professions know and do one thing other than be accepting and open without judgement , is there anything you think would be useful for us to be doing or to know?

Hari Parekh (: 16:37

I mean, it's this thing of, for example, the concern when we started this was how will the psychological kind of professional population view this? And so-

Dr Marianne Trent (: 16:49

Well, this one loves it, this one thinks it's really useful.

Hari Parekh (: 16:52

Yay! And that's the point in actually what we're trying to say is that up until now, perhaps the way that the structures of religion and the way that communities and families kind of assert themselves around a religious faith and belief in traditions and cultures and values psychologically speaking is gold dust, because a lot of the people that I've worked with over the years don't have half of that. And you think, you know what? Having that level of stability, if we use CFT terms using, compassion-focused therapy terms, if they have that kind of sense, stability, and support, then actually that would provide them with at least a little bit more of an opportunity going forwards, which is what a lot of the research would say. We're kind of turning that on its head a little bit here where we're saying, "Hang on a minute guys, I know that all of you guys are saying that this is all fabulous stuff. What happens when it doesn't work?"

Hari Parekh (: 17:49

And I think that it's that perspective that the academic sphere, even in psychology hasn't seen before. There are plenty of activists that have spoken about it, but it's the first time academically we can say, "Hang on a minute, let's question and [inaudible 00:18:03] this beautiful thing that we think is a really good thing." So it's about our ability to reflect and go just because they've got family structures, community structures, religious ties and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, doesn't mean that that means that that's positively enabled going forward. Actually, do we need to question that or do we need to look at that a little bit more in depth and how does that operated for them? If anything, within intervention I think you could probably appreciate it gives you this extra level of going, "Well, let's just tap into that a little bit and let's see where that's at." And that's an angle that perhaps clinicians haven't had before [inaudible 00:18:45]-

Dr Marianne Trent (: 18:45

Gives us a bit of added value and a bit of confidence to think about it.

Hari Parekh (: 18:49

Yeah. And the notion of, you can think about it in those ways. Like you can question the, when you're working with a patient, for example, for a number of years, you formulate that patient, you understand the kind of how they are, why they are, where they are, what's caused it, et cetera. If anything, this gives you an extra angle within that to go, "Hang on a minute, this means so much to you. In what way? How? Where does that come from?"

Hari Parekh (: 19:19

And actually, I remember working with a patient previously and her religious identity was part of the domestic violence that she'd been through. So technically having to talk about the religious faith at the same time or talking about her trauma and domestic violence history, you can't not separate, you can't keep them [inaudible 00:19:39]. You've got to bridge the gap and go, "Well, actually your thoughts on this side and your thoughts on this side kind of match up here, where that's concerning." We need to have that ability as professionals to have the confidence to say, you know what? I can question that religious part or I can question that cultural part and I can question that traditional part. [inaudible 00:20:02]-

Dr Marianne Trent (: 20:01

If you do it from the position of respect, I think that's okay and inquiry and thinking about whether it's keeping some of the problem stuck.

Hari Parekh (: 20:10

Yeah, I think so.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 20:15

Yeah, yeah. I was really interested to know that there's an organisation as well that supports people. So I'd never heard of Faith to Faithless, but that's something you mentioned in your research as well.

Hari Parekh (: 20:26

Yeah. So they work as the apostate service for the non-religious charity here in the UK. I currently work as they're volunteers manager. So what we do is we support and work... I know, right? There's [inaudible 00:20:41]. We work to support non-religious and apostate who have gone through these experiences. I think we also provide things like safeguarding training for professionals. We go to universities to deliver talks, and all those kind of things. So we're-

Dr Marianne Trent (: 20:59

Great.

Hari Parekh (: 21:00

... we're trying and hopefully [inaudible 00:21:02]-

Dr Marianne Trent (: 21:01

You've got such a varied experience. It's amazing.

Hari Parekh (: 21:05

Thank you. I mean, this is a point in that I was very lucky in that I was originally Hindu and I became apostate at university, but I went through none of the adverse issues that I raised in the paper when I used to run these student sector of Humanists UK, I met the co-founders of Faith to Faithless, who are Imtiaz Shams and Aliyah Saleem and that was when they were a standalone organisation and I realised that actually people are being abused as a result of leaving their religious faith. Well, this is the truth. At the same time, I was doing my masters in forensic and criminological psychology and they were like, "Pick a dissertation topic, come on, find [inaudible 00:21:48]-"

Dr Marianne Trent (: 21:48

Do you ever sleep?

Hari Parekh (: 21:50

No. And basically I was failing at finding a dissertation topic and then Vincent was just like, "What you [inaudible 00:21:59]-"

Dr Marianne Trent (: 21:58

Do what you know. Do what you know. Do what you enjoy.

Hari Parekh (: 22:01

[inaudible 00:22:01] interested in. I was like, "Well, Vince, here's an area that hasn't been looked at before." And I mean, he knows this stuff and he's like, "Well, that's pique my interest." [inaudible 00:22:10]-

Dr Marianne Trent (: 22:10

Okay. Well, it's piqued mine too. That decision all those years ago has led us together today.

Hari Parekh (: 22:16

Well, we're looking at 2015, 2016 when this was a master's thesis on its own.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 22:22

[inaudible 00:22:22].

Hari Parekh (: 22:22

So it's taken a good four, five years for it to get to the point of publication.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 22:27

Yeah, well, it brought us together, Hari.

Hari Parekh (: 22:30

[inaudible 00:22:30].

Dr Marianne Trent (: 22:31

Oh, it's been so nice to talk to you and honestly you've given me such food for thought, so thank you for doing the research, but also then thanks for following it through and actually writing it up and getting it to publication because so many of us, myself included with my doctoral thesis, just never got to publication and yeah, well done to you because it's a lot of work, it's a lot of commitment.

Hari Parekh (: 22:54

Thank you. I think the argument from my point was that if we had, I mean, we were really lucky to meet the hypotheses that there are people being abused for this. We were lucky that we met the hypothesis for that. So I think that it would've been-

Dr Marianne Trent (: 23:14

Those people might said they're unlucky but in terms of research goal.

Hari Parekh (: 23:19

Basically true. But I think the fact that we're able to, because we not only did we work with Faith to Faithless, we were a Humanists UK, [inaudible 00:23:27]-

Dr Marianne Trent (: 23:27

[inaudible 00:23:27]. Well, it's a nice size sample you had.

Hari Parekh (: 23:31

Yeah, we were with [inaudible 00:23:32] Foundation and we got a worldwide sample as well. So this isn't just going one nation is at risk, this is throughout the entirety. And I think that it would have been a disservice to the victims that put their name forward to have not have pushed it forward for publication. And the fact that it's the first one is just the icing on the cake currently because we can basically [inaudible 00:23:55] about it.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 23:55

I love that it is the first one because actually it makes everybody feel less alone. I'm sure all of the research participants have access to copying and feel really validated and heard because of that. But then for clinicians like me, I can evidence it. I can, I correct 2020.

Hari Parekh (: 24:13

Precisely.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 24:13

Have you read that paper? That's amazing. It's really nice to be part of that. But it's going to speak and it's going to keep on speaking to support clinicians but also help clients feel, heard, understood, and less isolated and alone. So it's really [inaudible 00:24:34]-

Hari Parekh (: 24:33

I'm really glad though you've had that response to it because I think the next steps for this piece is that's where it's headed in relation to getting more and more professionals, becoming more and more aware of this exists is an area we didn't know. Okay, what do we do about it? And I think that having professionals like yourself go, that's really interesting. I'm glad it piqued my attention means that it will gain more than what it would've done and hopefully the attention it can then gain will then work towards things like policy and procedure and kind of influencing governments and legislation and things like that as well. So yeah, I'm pretty stoked.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 25:15

Yeah. Well, me too. Well done. Good job, Hari. And thank you so much for agreeing to talk with me today and to kind of get this story out there a bit more with a bit with mental health focus as well. Thank you so much.

Hari Parekh (: 25:29

No worries. Thank you for having me.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 25:30

You're welcome. Thank you for listening. I hope you found that really interesting. I could listen to Hari all day, and thank you for Hari for giving his consent for me sharing this as a podcast episode because it's still a really important message that needs to get out there and you can access his research paper if you would like to. I will find a link in the show notes for that. So don't forget we have the Aspiring Psychologist Collective coming very soon. I will update you on that as soon as it's available. The Clinical Psychologist Collective is available too and across this application season, I am leaving the membership open so that you can dive in at any point that you would like to. So there's loads going on there. We've got a research clinic, we've got CBT teaching and formulation, we've got live Zooms with me, as well as weekly opportunities to ask me anything.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 26:35

And during application season, we've also got a free eight week live mindfulness course as well. So there is so much going on and it's all for the monthly price of 30 pounds a month and you can catch up on everything you've missed so far as well. You got any questions, give me a shout. Otherwise, very much looking forward to catching up with you for the next episode of the Aspiring Psychologist podcast, which will land with you at 6:00 AM on Monday. If you've got any ideas for what you'd like to feature in the podcast or content you'd like me to make, then please do let me know either by slipping into my DMs or by letting me know on the podcast page of my website. So it's goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk/podcast and then you can follow the links there to fill in the form.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 27:36

Do you come and connect with me on socials? I love helping you celebrate and being part of what is going on for you. I am Dr. Marianne Trent in most places and I'd say I hang out most often on LinkedIn. Thank you once again for listening. I hope you found this really useful. If you're watching on YouTube, please like and subscribe and bang me a comment in a few of the episodes whilst you're there. If you're listening on Apple Podcasts, please do rate and review as it helps us to reach a wider audience. Thank you so much. Catch up with you very soon. Bye.

Jingle Guy (: 28:11

(singing)