Trauma And Pastoral Care

This handbook is for leaders who are faced with leading an individual or a church community through a traumatic event and its aftermath. It arises out of the Tragedy and Congregations Project which helps churches to respond in a healthy way to the impact of tragedies through training in good practice, careful reflection, and drawing on faith resources. *Part One examines the physical and mental impact of trauma, and offers a rapid response pastoral toolkit and guidance on appropriate continuing care. *Part Two offers pastoral and liturgical strategies for collective trauma, suggesting ‘habits of the heart’ that will build resilience. *Part Three reflects on the changing story of life and faith as meaning is made from traumatising events, and reflects on recovery.

In Trauma-Informed Pastoral Care, pastoral psychologist Karen A. McClintock offers clergy competence and confidence as they care for trauma victims in their congregations and communities, provides practical skills to lower the risk of secondary trauma, and suggests culturally sensitive models for healing.

Provide effective care for the members of your congregation suffering with PTSD! This vital book is an overview of the nature of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It examines the causes, manifestations, and problems of PTSD as they relate to a person socially, spiritually, emotionally, physically, and psychologically. Stressing hope, healing, and compassion, Pastoral Care for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: Healing the Shattered Soul includes specific suggestions for the prevention of traumatic events and for using peacemaking techniques to stop violence in your clients’lives. Pastoral Care for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a practical, understandable, professionally presented and researched working guide for clergy in parishes, for chaplains, and for seminarians who have little or no knowledge of how to pastor to people who are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. It is also for lay people who minister to those who have been traumatized. Survivors will also benefit from its affirmation for the spiritual component of healing. This unique volume provides the practical means to support people through the healing process while maintaining their spiritual grounding, with: case studies that will help develop your skills a thoughtful discussion of the theological dimensions of trauma and suffering a practical methodology for crisis intervention an examination of the specific needs of veterans a look at the potential for caregiver burnout and how to prevent it ways that churches can contribute to the prevention of the trauma that leads to PTSD methods for using scripture as a source of healing for PTSD survivors Pastoral Care for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder also defines PTSD from a mental health perspective and gives examples of the kinds of trauma that may lead to it. No one working with PTSD survivors in a spiritual setting should be without this book!

A Christ-centered approach to dealing with trauma on both a personal and a communal level Traumas abound. Post-traumatic stress disorder, emotional and sexual abuse, unbearable anxiety and fear, and a host of other traumas afflict people everywhere. In this book Deborah van Deusen Hunsinger weaves together threads from the fields of psychology and pastoral theology as she explores the impact of trauma on people’s lives and offers practical strategies and restorative practices for dealing with it. Not only a teacher of pastoral theology but also an experienced pastoral counselor herself, Hunsinger draws on the resources of depth psychology, including object relations theory, trauma theory, family systems theory, nonviolent communication, and restorative circles. She then places her findings in a Christian theological context, emphasizing God’s work in and through Jesus’ passion, death, and resurrection, to present a cohesive, faith-based vision for healing.

Provide effective care for the members of your congregation suffering with PTSD! This vital book is an overview of the nature of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It examines the causes, manifestations, and problems of PTSD as they relate to a person socially, spiritually, emotionally, physically, and psychologically. Stressing hope, healing, and compassion, Pastoral Care for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: Healing the Shattered Soul includes specific suggestions for the prevention of traumatic events and for using peacemaking techniques to stop violence in your clients’lives. Pastoral Care for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a practical, understandable, professionally presented and researched working guide for clergy in parishes, for chaplains, and for seminarians who have little or no knowledge of how to pastor to people who are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. It is also for lay people who minister to those who have been traumatized. Survivors will also benefit from its affirmation for the spiritual component of healing. This unique volume provides the practical means to support people through the healing process while maintaining their spiritual grounding, with: case studies that will help develop your skills a thoughtful discussion of the theological dimensions of trauma and suffering a practical methodology for crisis intervention an examination of the specific needs of veterans a look at the potential for caregiver burnout and how to prevent it ways that churches can contribute to the prevention of the trauma that leads to PTSD methods for using scripture as a source of healing for PTSD survivors Pastoral Care for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder also defines PTSD from a mental health perspective and gives examples of the kinds of trauma that may lead to it. No one working with PTSD survivors in a spiritual setting should be without this book!

"From personal interviews with chaplains at the temporary mortuary at Ground Zero and her own experiences as an Episcopal priest, psychotherapist, and chaplain, Storm Swain offers a new model of pastoral care grounded in theology and practice. Reflecting on experiences of suffering faced in ministry, Swain considers what it means to love in these instances and what is involved in ministering in these contexts. Within this model, caregivers can move from a place of trauma to a place of transformation, which enables wholeness and healing for both caregivers and those for whom they care" -- Publisher description.

The intention of Trauma Sensitive Theology is to help theologians, professors, clergy, spiritual care givers, and therapists speak well of God and faith without further wounding survivors of trauma. It explores the nature of traumatic exposure, response, processing, and recovery and its impact on constructive theology and pastoral leadership and care. Through the lenses of contemporary traumatology, somatics, and the Internal Family Systems model of psychotherapy, the text offers a framework for seeing trauma and its impact in the lives of individuals, communities, society, and within our own sacred texts. It argues that care of traumatic wounding must include all dimensions of the human person, including our spiritual practices, religious rituals and community participation, and theological thinking. As such, clergy and spiritual care professionals have an important role to play in the recovery of traumatic wounding and fostering of resiliency. This book explores how trauma-informed congregational leaders can facilitate resiliency and offers one way of thinking theologically in response to traumatizing abuses of relational power and our resources for restoration.

The essentials of pastoral care involve the pastor's distinctive task of caring for those who are estranged--the lost sheep. Taken from the biblical image of the shepherd, the pastor by virtue of his or her professional calling cultivates wise judgment in order to hear the hurting and offer guidance, reconciliation, healing, sustaining presence, and empowerment to those in need. This book will outline the quintessential elements pastors need to wisely minister in today's context by discussing four major kinds of lostness: grief, illness, abuse, and family challenges. The purpose of the Abingdon Essential Guides is to fulfill the need for brief, substantive, yet highly accessible introductions to the core disciples in biblical, theological, and religious studies. Drawing on the best in current scholarship, written with the need of students foremost in mind, addressed to learners in a number of contexts, Essential Guides will be the first choice of those who wish to acquaint themselves or their students with the broad scope of issues, perspectives, and subject matters within biblical and religious studies.