Trauma and Healing: Faith Communities Respond

1. Trauma and Healing: Faith Communities Respond Philip G. Monroe, PsyD Global Trauma Recovery Institute Biblical Seminary pmonroe@biblical.edu

2. Objectives • Review trauma’s impact on faith • Recognize and value faith community trauma recovery responses • Recommend next steps for improved faith/mental health cooperation

3. Objectives: Negative impact? Positive impact? 1. Review trauma impact on faith Experience and Expression

4. Trauma Disrupts Faith/Identity • Loss of meaning/connection • Existential angst • Spiritual struggles • Moral injury • Disconnection: faith and community • Special issue: Shame

5. PTSD and Meaning Loss • Exposure • Intrusive symptoms • Avoidance responses • Hypervigilance • Negative mood/cognitions

6. Complex Trauma and Meaning Prolonged interpersonal trauma? • Loss of Meaning and Purpose • No longer believe life has purpose • Question religious beliefs

7. 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)

8. Spiritual Struggles Two categories • Discontent • Reappraisal Relationship with trauma symptoms? Jennifer Wortmann- University of CT

9. Moral Injury War-related moral injuries • Weakened faith and increased guilt predict greater usage of VA services Fontana and Rosenbeck, VA National Center, 2004

10. 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

11. Disconnected! Now here I am Without myself Bitter How can I go back To whence I sprang? MakDizdar

12. 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 symptomatic Joseph Currier, Fuller Seminary

13. NegativeImpact on Spirituality? Loss of meaning Spiritual struggles Moral injury Disconnection: faith and community And one more…

14. Vicarious Trauma The emotional residue in your life Evil often undermines and challenge beliefs • Listening to stories will change you! …or become epitome of evil ̶ E. Wiesel

15. 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, education Don Walker (Regent)

16. Positive Religious Coping • Derive meaning and purpose from worship and engagement of the Sacred • Connect to others: Community bonding

17. 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

18. It is a Community Effort! Community helps • re-telling of stories • point to transcendence

19. 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

20. 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)

21. 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)

22. 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.)

23. Objectives: Brief Review of Spiritual Interventions Lament in Special Focus Faith Community in Trauma Recovery: Exemplars 2. Recognize and value faith community work in trauma recovery

24. Spiritually Integrated Interventions • Mind/Body interventions • Yoga; Tai Chi; Mindful attention • Prayer/Meditation • Yogic meditation; Transcendental Meditation/Sacred word; Prayer

25. 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

26. Sacred Texts: Laments Purpose: • Complaints about injustice and loss • Questioning God • Asking for rescue, calling on promises • Waiting expectantly

27. Benefit of Laments? Increased communion and intimacy Kim Snow Holding communion and complaint together in our “winter of faith” R. Beck

28. 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

29. My Brag Board

30. Good Reads

31. 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 For Faith Communities (FC) For Mental Health (MH) Recommendations

32. 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

33. Next Steps for the FC • Build relationships with MHPs and other FCs • Re-capture spiritual practices that support trauma recovery

34. Next Steps for MH • Identify biases • Respect religiously committed individuals • Inquire about faith with every client • Avoid marginalizing spiritual healing practices

35. 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?

36. My faith is Me WELLBEING

37. Develop Competencies • Develop spiritual/religious competencies • Seek out learning relationships with FC leaders Learn 16 competencies Vieten, Scammel, Pilato, Ammondson, Pargament & Lukoff (2013). Spiritual and Religious Competencies for Psychologists. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 5, 129-144

38. 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 harm Adapted and modified from Siddarth Shah’s unpublished essay on ethnomedical competence

39. Concluding Thought What is your tendency? • Nihilism/despair • Messianism/presumption Warren Kinghorn (Duke)

40. Despair? Consider Job’s “friends” Curse God and die! When will you end this ranting?

41. 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

42. www.wisecounsel.wordpress.com pmonroe@biblical.edu