Transforming Trauma Recovery in Health Care: Faith as the Linchpin of Post-Traumatic Growth
Beth Reece, MDiv, Manager of Spiritual Care/Chaplain, Shirley Ryan AbilityLab
Trauma from illness affects patients physically, spiritually and emotionally. Yet little in the training of health care practitioners and even less in the literature of bioethics acknowledges the reality and role of trauma in patients’ experience of illness and their processes of healing and recovering. While much of the recent literature on trauma focuses on post-traumatic distress, our research shows that Post-Traumatic Growth (PTG), positive change that can follow traumatic events, is possible for 50 to 80% of trauma survivors despite physical impairment. Importantly, the literature on PTG includes ‘faith’ as a critical tool for recovery, alongside story-telling, community, hope, and creativity). Yet often, the discussion of faith often seems tentative, vague, undefined. Here scholars of PTG meet the limits of their comfort and competency.
One set of health care practitioners largely missing from the PTG conversation stands particularly at the intersection of trauma and faith: chaplains. Chaplains enter the chaos and devastation of trauma, offering spiritual care and accompaniment. In this presentation, we draw on our expertise as a chaplain and a theologian to further develop the role of faith in PTG. Drawing on Levine (1997, 2010), Frank (2013), Grant (1996), Seligman (2000) and Groopman (2004), we describe the pertinent aspects of trauma relative to the medical context. We then outline the emerging research on PTG, following Calhoun, Tedeschi (1995, 1996, 1999, 2015), Park (2004), Akhtar (2017), Ai, Hall, and Pargament (2012), and Umer and Elliot (2018). We then develop a more theologically-robust account of faith in the PTG context. While faith has been identified as one of the strongest PTG tools (Prati and Pietrantoni, 2008), we argue that it is in fact a framework which informs and expands the other tools (Karanci, 2005). Rather than standing alone as a fifth or final tool in what is often portrayed as a linear, sequential PTG toolbox, we argue that faith is a critical element in facilitating the work of the other tools, enabling an on-going spiral of post-traumatic and spiritual growth in the lives of patients, families, and practitioners. While approaching this question from a Christian perspective, we argue that faith as a mechanism for PTG is universal in its ability to uncover the sacred, no matter what culture or religion (Thombre, 2017). We conclude with recommendations for how chaplains and other health care practitioners might facilitate this framework of spiritual and emotional healing within healthcare, as well as insights for how attention to trauma and spirituality challenge the regnant framework of bioethics.
One set of health care practitioners largely missing from the PTG conversation stands particularly at the intersection of trauma and faith: chaplains. Chaplains enter the chaos and devastation of trauma, offering spiritual care and accompaniment. In this presentation, we draw on our expertise as a chaplain and a theologian to further develop the role of faith in PTG. Drawing on Levine (1997, 2010), Frank (2013), Grant (1996), Seligman (2000) and Groopman (2004), we describe the pertinent aspects of trauma relative to the medical context. We then outline the emerging research on PTG, following Calhoun, Tedeschi (1995, 1996, 1999, 2015), Park (2004), Akhtar (2017), Ai, Hall, and Pargament (2012), and Umer and Elliot (2018). We then develop a more theologically-robust account of faith in the PTG context. While faith has been identified as one of the strongest PTG tools (Prati and Pietrantoni, 2008), we argue that it is in fact a framework which informs and expands the other tools (Karanci, 2005). Rather than standing alone as a fifth or final tool in what is often portrayed as a linear, sequential PTG toolbox, we argue that faith is a critical element in facilitating the work of the other tools, enabling an on-going spiral of post-traumatic and spiritual growth in the lives of patients, families, and practitioners. While approaching this question from a Christian perspective, we argue that faith as a mechanism for PTG is universal in its ability to uncover the sacred, no matter what culture or religion (Thombre, 2017). We conclude with recommendations for how chaplains and other health care practitioners might facilitate this framework of spiritual and emotional healing within healthcare, as well as insights for how attention to trauma and spirituality challenge the regnant framework of bioethics.