Religious and Pastoral Responses to Trauma

Religious faith and spiritual life are an essential part of human nature. Positive beliefs and existential hope give people zeal to thrive and flourish. Psychosocial resiliency is deeply rooted in religious values, communal heritage, and generational wisdom. Disasters and tragedies seriously interrupt the flow of emotional stability, collective tranquility, and equilibrium of spirituality.

Following a major loss or trauma, communities as well as individuals often become much more reflective, religious, contemplative, and worshipful than usual. Traumas have a way of opening up the gates of the soul to seek what is beyond the scope of the immediate troubles and to transcend the limits of one's condition. Some of the first responses to wars, tragedies, and disasters have been religious and spiritual in nature. People often seek prayer, read scriptures, flock to houses of worship, and rekindle their religious life. Conversely, trauma also has a way of offending people's basic belief systems; they may feel bitter, turn away from faith, and become angry toward God or resentful toward life in general. Some tend to blame everything and everybody for their misfortune or distress, not realizing that their expectations of life have been too complacent or too comfortable, so that their foundations become easily shaken by any moderate crisis or serious ordeal.

Most denominations, religious groups, and communities of faith (churches, synagogues, shrines) are usually among the first respondents to sudden crises, horrific accidents, natural disasters, pressing social ills, violent crimes, displaced refugees, war victims, and similar tragedies. Religious groups have a social orientation to their public ministries (relief work, compassionate aid, social justice). Most mainstream denominations set aside a yearly budget as a disaster fund that can be used locally, nationally, or internationally. In addition, the movement of pastoral care, the program of chaplaincy, and the desire of many clergy to gain training in trauma-related counseling have grown substantially in recent decades. Particularly, the Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) movement is a well-established and respected training program, which prepares ordained ministers for psychospiritual services in a variety of settings (including an interfaith context). CPE integrates the premises of health, the skills of counseling, and the richness of faith to the care of souls. All these care-givers are increasingly in demand and are called on to be equally involved on the frontlines of tragedies in helping others with the tasks of crisis intervention, first aid delivery, grief and loss debriefing, critical incident response, and trauma intervention and care. At the same time, such providers are not immune to the effects of secondary trauma or vicarious trauma and, in turn, may need debriefing and compassionate attention themselves. Most large churches and mission agencies have established a department called member care, specifically designed to watch over their staff and caregivers, especially those who are serving on the frontlines or in troubled areas around the world.

Emotionally struggling people and victims of acute disturbances and tragedies normally seek their spiritual leaders and pastors first, even before seeking other specialized counselors or health care professionals. Victims are looking for supportive presence, soothing affirmation, and calming assurance. They usually are in need of a deep soul connection that surpasses the physical boundary and emotional field. They need to be anchored in a reality that is larger than their own shattered world or already diminished reality. Normally, trauma causes helplessness, fear, depression, anxiety, and despair. It triggers religious-spiritual responses (on the inner, inter, and intra levels) because it shakes people's foundations and worldviews. Traumatic experiences, whether single or repeated events, often unsettle the victims' sense of continuity, livelihood, progression, and meaning. Hope generates optimism and a sense of future-fullness, but despair generates pessimism and a sense of futurelessness. Frequently, those who are exposed to multiple traumas feel numb on the inside and unmotivated to try again. They refuse to move on, as if they have lost the zeal for life. Supportive psychospiritual interventions can help traumatized people rediscover meaning, reframe reality, reconnect with the present, and re-instill hope, so they may become friends with the future again.

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