Trauma, meaning, and spirituality: Translating research into clinical practice
ISBN: 9781433823251
Platform/Publisher: PsycBOOKS / American Psychological Association
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Chapter; Download: Chapter
Subjects: Neuroses & Anxiety Disorders;

Trauma represents a spiritual or religious violation for many people. Survivors attempt to make sense out of painful events, incorporating that meaning into their current worldview in either a harmful or a more helpful way. This volume helps mental health practitioners--many of whom are less religious than their clients--understand the important relationship between trauma and spirituality, and how to best help survivors create meaning out of their experiences. Drawing on relevant theories and research, the authors present a new conceptual framework, the Reciprocal Meaning-Making Model, demonstrating how it can guide both assessment and treatment. Through the use of case material, the authors examine a range of spiritual views, traumas, and posttraumatic reactions that are reflective of the population as a whole rather than targeting only specific religions or cultural perspectives. Given the lack of scientific literature on the topic, this book fills an important gap, and will appeal to clinicians and researchers alike.

Crystal L. Park, PhD, is a professor of clinical psychology at the University of Connecticut. Her research focuses on multiple aspects of coping with stressful events, including the roles of religious beliefs and religious coping, the phenomenon of stress-related growth, and the making of meaning in the context of bereavement, traumatic events, and life-threatening illnesses. Her recent work has focused on integrative approaches to health, especially yoga.

She is coeditor of the Handbook of the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality (2nd ed.; 2013) and Medical Illness and Positive Life Change: Can Crisis Lead to Personal Transformation? (2009).

Joseph M. Currier, PhD, is an assistant professor and director of clinical training in the combined Clinical and Counseling Psychology Doctoral Program at the University of South Alabama.

His research focuses on psychological, spiritual/existential, and physical health consequences of military trauma and other stressful life events (e.g., bereavement, community violence) and on enhancing clinical interventions and assessment practices for individuals and families dealing with these issues. Many of his recent projects have focused on testing and validating the construct of moral injury as it relates to military populations and on illumining ways in which religion and spirituality can help and hinder recovery from trauma.

J. Irene Harris, PhD, LP, is an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota Departments of Psychiatry and Counseling Psychology, as well as a clinician investigator at the Minneapolis VA Health Care System.

Her research focuses on the intersection and clinical applications of relationships between spiritual/religious functioning and mental health, with an emphasis on trauma and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Her recent work has focused on clinical approaches to the treatment of moral injury and spiritually integrated approaches to the treatment of PTSD.

Jeanne M. Slattery, PhD, is professor of psychology at Clarion University. She has written Empathic Counseling: Meaning, Context, Ethics, and Skill (with Crystal Park; 2011) and Counseling Diverse Clients: Bringing Context Into Therapy (2003).

She has a small private practice working with adults and children with mood and anxiety disorders, especially subsequent to a history of trauma.

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