Creating Spiritual And Psychological Resilience

Creating Spiritual and Psychological Resilience explores the interface between spiritual and psychological care in the context of disaster recovery work, drawing upon recent disasters including but not limited to, the experiences of September 11, 2001. Each of the three sections that make up the book are structured around the cycle of disaster response and focus on the relevant phase of disaster recovery work. In each section, selected topics combining spiritual and mental health factors are examined; when possible, sections are co-written by a spiritual care provider and a mental health care provider with appropriate expertise. Existing interdisciplinary collaborations, creative partnerships, gaps in care, and needed interdisciplinary work are identified and addressed, making this book both a useful reference for theory and an invaluable hands-on resource.

This book addresses the need for maturational growth in undergraduate and entry-level graduate students as a foundation for professional and civic development. It presents an engaged learning curriculum for higher education, Know Your Self, which strengthens psychological resilience and interpersonal community-building skills through person-centered growth in five dimensions of self: bio-behavioral, cognitive-sociocultural, social-emotional, existential-spiritual, and resilient worldview formation. This growth promotes well-being and a positive campus culture, preparing students to build cultures of health, social justice, and peace in the social systems where they will work and live. This project emerged from Kass’ professional work in humanistic psychology with Dr. Carl Rogers. Case studies and statistical data illustrate the formation of health-promoting, pro-social behaviors, culturally-inclusive community building, and secure existential attachment. This book will help faculty and student life professionals address the urgent need in young adults for person-centered psychospiritual maturation.

What we do today is what matters most. Life doesn't get more comfortable; we get stronger and more resilient. Resilience is a precious approach. People who have it also tend to have three underlying advantages: A believe that they can influence life events; a tendency to find meaningful purpose in life's turmoil; and a conviction that they can learn from both positive and negative experience.How resilient are you? God is the real source of our resilience; spiritual resilience is the only one that is self-replenishingamongst the sources of resilience. It is proven that the very act in believing adds to our resilience. Like emotional resilience, spiritual resilience grows when shared. But unlike all other resilience, it is spiritual resilience that refills itself. Nobody was born with a special type of resilience, be it spiritual, psychology, or otherwise; it's a defined character that has to be developed, we need it in our lives, and that makes us who we are. The question is, how does one develop this character? This book guides us on how to improve this "special character" through PRAYER, AFFIRMATION, GRATITUDE, EXHALING, and SILENCE. Do you know what that means? You can develop it!

"Mr. Doherty has produced an invaluable reference volume for everyone involved in disaster response/disaster preparedness field. It represents the ultimate A-to-Z 'How to Do It' manual in this difficult, complicated field.--John G. Jones, Ph.D.

30 brief reflections will help the reader rediscover spiritual resilience and psychological strength.

As U.S. service members deploy for extended periods on a repeated basis, their ability to cope with the stress of deployment may be challenged. Many programs are available to encourage and support psychological resilience among service members and families. However, little is known about these programs' effectiveness. This report reviews resilience literature and programs to identify evidence-informed factors for promoting resilience.

Of all the huge natural disasters that claimed the lives of thousands in Asia, the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 was the largest, estimated to have killed more than 230,000 people. The scope of damage brought about by this natural disaster urges focus on recovery and post-disaster reconstruction from several perspectives. Here we find an in-depth ethnography of Thailand and the role of culture and religion as an underpinning issue in post-disaster recovery. Following the post-tsunami recovery over five years, the book provides knowledge on socio-cultural responses from affected local communities after natural hazards, and is based on original material collected in Thailand after the 2004 tsunami. With a focus on how culture and religion interplay in the processes of building resilience and decreasing vulnerability, it gives a deeper understanding of how disasters are experienced and dealt with on a local level. It examines survivors’ experiences of rituals and ceremonies that became a part of the survivors’ lives in new ways after the tsunami, offering psychological reassurance and religious efficaciousness as well as communication links between themselves and the deceased. Using observations, narratives and material from in-depth interviews with survivors, relatives, relief workers, officials and Buddhist monks and nuns, this book contributes to the research on anthropology of disaster and to the development of research on cultural resilience and religion in post-disaster recovery. It will be of interest to scholars of Disaster Studies, Buddhist Studies and Asian Studies.