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Trauma and Healing: Faith Communities Respond
Philip G. Monroe, PsyD
Global Trauma Recovery Institute
Biblical Seminary
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Objectives
• Review trauma’s impact on faith• Recognize and value faith community
trauma recovery responses• Recommend next steps for improved
faith/mental health cooperation
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1. REVIEW TRAUMA IMPACT ON FAITH EXPERIENCE AND EXPRESSION
Objectives:
Negative impact?
Positive impact?
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Trauma Disrupts Faith/Identity
• Loss of meaning/connection• Existential angst• Spiritual struggles• Moral injury• Disconnection: faith and community• Special issue: Shame
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PTSD and Meaning Loss
• Exposure• Intrusive symptoms• Avoidance responses• Hypervigilance• Negative mood/cognitions
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Complex Trauma and Meaning
Prolonged interpersonal trauma?–Loss of Meaning and Purpose
• No longer believe life has purpose• Question religious beliefs
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Existential Angst
I was ready to tell the story of my life,
but the ripple of tears, and the agony of my
heart, wouldn’t let me
Rumi (13th C. Sufi Poet)
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Spiritual Struggles
Two categories– Discontent– Reappraisal
Relationship with trauma symptoms?
Jennifer Wortmann- University of CT
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Moral Injury
War-related moral injuries– Weakened faith and increased guilt predict
greater usage of VA services
Fontana and Rosenbeck, VA National Center, 2004
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Civilian Moral Injury?
Trauma WITHIN faith communities
“I feel like a spiritual orphan, betrayed by what I loved, and I feel lost and alone”
Kusner & Pargament, Trauma Therapy in Context, 2012
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Disconnected!
Now here I am Without myself
Bitter How can I go back
To whence I sprang?Mak Dizdar
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Result: Shame
Common Refrains– I can’t forgive myself; I can’t forgive them– I shouldn’t fear…I should trust
Veterans who cannot forgive self are more symptomaticJoseph Currier, Fuller Seminary
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Negative Impact on Spirituality?
Loss of meaning
Spiritual struggles
Moral injury
Disconnection: faith and community
And one more…
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Vicarious Trauma
Evil often undermines and challenge beliefs– Listening to stories will change you!
…or become epitome of evil A E. Wiesel
The emotional residue in your life
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Can it Improve Your Faith?
The data is mixed!
34 studies– 14: significant disruption of faith– 12: mixed evidence– 8: positive impact
Clues? Age, context, culture, educationDon Walker (Regent)
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Positive Religious Coping
• Derive meaning and purpose from worship and engagement of the Sacred
• Connect to others: Community bonding
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David Brooks, Theologian?
Suffering calls us to :– Accept personal limits– Acknowledge self-deception– Answer the call to the greater good– Submit to the moral drama of life
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It is a Community Effort!
Community helps• re-telling of stories • point to transcendence
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Related Concepts?
• Posttraumatic growth– New identities, capacities, meaning
(≠ absence of suffering and symptoms!)
• Resilience– “Personal moral compass”
• Cognitive flexibility– Live with ambiguity: lessens spiritual
struggles
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Faith and Pathology?
Not all faith responses are helpful– Desecration…rejection…angry/ominous– Passive spiritual responses
• Predicts depression• Accounts for 50% of trauma variance (Falb &
Pargament)
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Soften problematic beliefs?
“…cognitive techniques aimed at softening client beliefs about right and wrong or disputing the validity of the client’s guilt might paradoxically deprive a religiously committed client of rituals such as the confession of sin as an avenue to grace.”
W. Brad Johnson (USNA)
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Soften problematic beliefs?
“therapists who strip away the language of sin from Christian clients may unwittingly take away a source of peace and hope by foreclosing the possibility of grace and forgiveness.”
Mark R. McMinn (George Fox U.)
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2. RECOGNIZE AND VALUE FAITH COMMUNITY WORK IN TRAUMA RECOVERY
Objectives:
Brief Review of Spiritual Interventions
Lament in Special Focus
Faith Community in Trauma Recovery: Exemplars
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Spiritually Integrated Interventions
• Mind/Body interventions– Yoga; Tai Chi; Mindful attention
• Prayer/Meditation– Yogic meditation; Transcendental
Meditation/Sacred word; Prayer
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EPP and Health Professionals
• Passage meditation• Repetition of holy word/mantram• Slowing down• One point attention• Training the senses• Putting others first• Spiritual association• Inspirational reading
Doug Oman, Oakland Public Health Institute
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Sacred Texts: Laments
Purpose:– Complaints about injustice and loss– Questioning God– Asking for rescue, calling on promises– Waiting expectantly
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Benefit of Laments?
Increased communion and intimacy
Kim Snow
Holding communion and complaint together in our “winter of faith”
R. Beck
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Elie Wiesel on Lament
I have not lost faith in God. I have moments of anger and protest.
Sometimes I’ve been closer to him for that reason.
Night
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My Brag Board
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Good Reads
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RECOMMENDATIONS
For Faith Communities (FC)
For Mental Health (MH)
Sample Article Titles:
•Spirituality in Clinical Practice•Spiritual Functioning Among Veterans Seeking Residential Treatment for PTSD•The Morally-Injured Veteran•Spiritually Oriented Disaster Psychology•Anger Concepts and Anger Reduction Method in Theravada Buddhism•Enchanted Agnosticism
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Next Steps for the FC
• Self-examination; Admit fears and biases• Develop whole body perspectives of
trauma• Educate communities about value of MH
– Encourage empirical evaluation
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Next Steps for the FC
• Build relationships with MHPs and other FCs
• Re-capture spiritual practices that support trauma recovery
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Next Steps for MH
• Identify biases• Respect religiously committed
individuals– Inquire about faith with every client– Avoid marginalizing spiritual healing
practices
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Dialogue Topics
• What acts of faith/worship are most meaningful to you?
• What concerns do you have about your own faith practices?
• Concerns about my faith/spirituality?• What do you wish others understood
better about your beliefs?
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Develop Competencies
• Develop spiritual/religious competencies– Seek out learning relationships with FC
leaders
Vieten, Scammel, Pilato, Ammondson, Pargament & Lukoff (2013). Spiritual and Religious Competencies for Psychologists. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 5, 129-144
Learn 16 competencies
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Cross-cultural Engagement
• Utilize literature, anthropology, and related disciplines to arrive at a more accurate view of person of faith
• Learn local “language” of distress and develop agreed upon goals
• Study local healing interventions and healers• Choose set of integrated interventions in order
to do no harmAdapted and modified from Siddarth Shah’s unpublished
essay on ethnomedical competence
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Concluding Thought
What is your tendency?– Nihilism/despair– Messianism/presumption
Warren Kinghorn (Duke)
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Despair?
Consider Job’s “friends”
Curse God and die!
When will you end this ranting?
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Presumption?
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give
you hope and a future”Jeremiah 29:11