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Healing after Traumatic Events: Aligning Interventions with Cultural Background and Religious and Spiritual Beliefs
Abstract
Historically, disaster response efforts have focused primarily on basic physical survival and safety—addressing medical emergencies and ensuring adequate shelter and supplies of food and water. However, in addition to physical survival, relief efforts must also consider strategies to promote emotional healing and psychological well-being. In particular, those who intervene must consider the acceptability of intervention strategies, taking into account survivors’ cultural background, religious customs, and spiritual beliefs. This article offers recommendations to better align school-based therapeutic interventions with children’s religious and spiritual beliefs.
... [19] Another study conducted in the city of Mashhad in Iran showed providing pastoral care of pregnant women with preeclampsia risk of postpartum reduces stress disorder. [20] Although some of previous studies examined the association traumatic events and religious [21,22] and PTG, there is very few studies of the relationship between the pattern of traumatic events and PTG and religious indicators among college students. Due to the importance of the mental health of young people, the present study was aimed to determine the pattern of traumatic events and its relationship with religiosity and PTG among Iranian students. ...
... [25] A six-point Likert use for scoring organizational religiosity and nonorganizational religiosity while the three questions for intrinsic religiosities use a five-point Likert scale. [22] Saffari et al. have recruited 796 college students with an average age of 23.7 from Tehran. The Cronbach's alpha ranged from 0.866 to 0.921 in this study. ...
BACKGROUND: Traumatic events and psychological damage are common. Identifying different types of traumatic events contributes to the development of psychopathology and can be very helpful in macroeducational and treatment planners. The current study extracted the patterns (overlap) of different traumatic events that Iranian college students commonly experience, with the aim of understanding their association with posttraumatic growth (PTG) and religiosity.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: Four hundred and sixty-six students from Kerman universities completed a cross-sectional survey about religion, and questions about PTG and traumatic events have experienced in the past 5 years. The latent class analysis (LCA) was used for extracting patterns of traumatic events, and the one-way ANOVA test was used to compare PTG and religiosity across these classes in Iranian college students.
RESULTS: The LCA revealed that a three-class solution had an adequate relative and absolute fit. The three classes were labeled and characterized as multiple-traumatic events (2.9%), intermediate-traumatic events (31.1%), and low-traumatic events (66.0%). In ANOVA results for PTG and Duke University Religion Index (DUREL) domains across classes, individuals in the multiple-traumatic classes had the lowest score of PTG and DUREL domains.
CONCLUSION: Although the current study showed the relative frequency of multiple-traumatic events in Iranian students is low, individuals categorized in this class had the lowest PTG, and these findings reveal the necessitation of planning and interventions for PTG.
... Holistic intervention is encouraged as an implementation of a strategic plan of action to improve overall being and to reinforce cognitive, socio-emotional, and spiritual needs . Alignment of therapeutic intervention is necessary to have collaborative efforts to promote elevated well-being concerning cultural and spiritual beliefs (Heath & Parraga, 2020). The study of Kyung and Ja (2022) suggests that a holistic approach is relevant, in which the manifestation of hope as part of spiritual well-being influences self-care practices. ...
... Consultants can assist teams in infusing family and community culture and beliefs in the responses they take to death and loss. For instance, consultants can offer scripts for teams to ask families about relevant spiritual beliefs or partner with religious or spiritual leaders in the community to identify grief supports (Heath & Cutrer-Párraga, 2020). Consultants can lead the development and monitoring of partnership practices with families, such as open houses, teacher check-ins with families, and positive phone calls home. ...
Objective:
The purpose of this systematic review is to synthesize the existing empirical psychology of religion/spirituality (R/S) and disaster research and offer a prospectus for future research.
Method:
Searches were conducted in PsycINFO, PsycARTICLES, Medline databases, and through personal communication with study authors covering a period from 1975 (from the earliest identified study meeting our criteria) to 2015. Studies that took an empirical approach to studying the impact of disasters on R/S phenomena, as well as the relationship between R/S phenomena, cognition, behavior, and well-being in disaster contexts were included.
Results:
A total of 51 articles met the inclusion criteria. We organized the empirical findings under five main categories, which emerged from sorting studies by their primary R/S focus: (a) general religiousness, (b) God representations, (c) religious appraisals, (d) R/S meaning making, and (e) religious coping. On the whole, R/S appears to generally lead to positive outcomes among disaster survivors. Results suggest positive benefits of R/S comes more from how one engages faith and access to resources via R/S communities.
Conclusions:
This review revealed several emerging patterns regarding what is known as well as existing gaps in the literature, including the need for more rigorous methodological designs and ongoing systematic programs of study. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
Disrupted systems of meaning are a core domain in which adults with a complex trauma history are impacted, often leading to adversely affected belief systems. For adult survivors of childhood trauma, experiences related to shame, betrayal, meaning-making, and mourning often complicate their spiritual and/or religious beliefs. This article uses a clinical case example to introduce and illustrate the relevance of a particular complex trauma intervention framework in the context of spiritually-informed treatment with adult Christian clients. Component-Based Psychotherapy (CBP; Hopper, Grossman, Spinazzola, & Zucker, in press) consists of four principal components: (a) relationship, (b) regulation, (c) parts work, and (d) narrative, and is predicated upon the importance of clienttherapist parallel process to therapeutic movement and client change. Each treatment component is summarized and practically applied to case material, with particular focus on the ways in which client's faith beliefs and practices can serve as a potential resource and/or barrier in treatment. Particular integrative focus is given to the final treatment component (narrative), where issues of a client's lament, spiritual meaning making, and the therapist's potential vulnerabilities in working with this population are addressed.
This article draws on experiences and lessons from global disasters and utilizes the United Nations Comprehensive School Safety Framework to highlight the necessary role of safe schools in protecting children, as well as adult staff, from the immediate threats and long-term implications of disasters. Specifically, we focus on three well-established pillars of school safety: Pillar I: Safe Learning Facilities; Pillar II: Disaster Management; and Pillar III: Risk Reduction and Resilience Education. In addition, we propose a potential fourth pillar, which underscores the function of schools in postdisaster mental health assessment and intervention for children. We argue that schools offer a central location and trusted institutional space for mental health assessment and intervention after disasters. We also examine the important linkages between schools, child mental health, and household and family recovery. We conclude with recommendations for filling gaps in research and practice related to ensuring the safety of schools and the associated health and well-being of children in the face of future disasters.
Religion and spirituality are important aspects of human diversity that should receive adequate attention in cultural competence training for psychologists. Furthermore, spiritual and religious beliefs and practices are relevant to psychological and emotional well-being, and clinicians who are trained to sensitively address these domains in their clinical practice should be more effective. Our research team previously published a set of 16 religious and spiritual competencies based on a combination of focus group and survey research with the intent that they could be used to guide training. In the present study, we conducted a survey to determine whether these competencies would be acceptable to a broader population of practicing clinicians. Results indicate a large degree of support for the proposed competencies. Between 73.0 and 94.1% of respondents agreed that psychologists should receive training and demonstrate competence in each of the 16 areas. The majority (52.2%–80.7%) indicated that they had received little or no training, and between 29.7% and 58.6% had received no training at all, in these competencies. We conclude with recommendations for integrating these religious and spiritual competencies more fully into clinical training and practice.
It is clear from polls of the general public that religion and spirituality are important in most people's lives. In addition, the spiritual and religious landscape is becoming increasingly diverse, with nearly a fifth of people unaffiliated with a religion, and increasing numbers of people identifying themselves as spiritual, but not religious. Religion and spirituality have been empirically linked to a number of psychological health and well-being outcomes, and there is evidence that clients would prefer to have their spirituality and religion addressed in psychotherapy. However, most often, religious and spiritual issues are not discussed in psychotherapy, nor are they included in assessment or treatment planning. The field of psychology has already included religion and spirituality in most definitions of multiculturalism and requires training in multicultural competence, but most psychotherapists receive little or no training in religious and spiritual issues, in part because no agreed-on set of spiritual competencies or training guidelines exist. In response to this need, we have developed a proposed set of spiritual and religious competencies for psychologists based on (1) a comprehensive literature review, (2) a focus group with scholars and clinicians, and (3) an online survey of 184 scholars and clinicians experienced in the integration of spiritual and religious beliefs and practices and psychology. Survey participants offered suggestions on wording for each item, and a subset of 105 licensed psychotherapists proficient in the intersection of spirituality/religion and psychology rated clarity and relative importance of each item as a basic spiritual and religious competency. The result is a set of 16 basic spiritual and religious competencies (attitudes, knowledge, and skills) that we propose all licensed psychologists should demonstrate in the domain of spiritual and religious beliefs and practices.
According to Ronan and Johnston (2005) the number of people who will experience a disaster will double by 2050 from one billion people to two billion people. Since 1985 there has been an almost 400% increase in global natural disasters ( Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, 2007). Researchers managing the global terrorism database report a similar increase in terrorist events over the last decade, with almost 5,000 events annually. Some of the worst disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina, Haiti Earthquake, Japan Tsunami, and Philippines Typhoon occurred in the past decade alone. Disasters are becoming more complex, with primary disasters (e.g., earthquake) often triggering secondary disasters (e.g., nuclear meltdown). Research shows that disasters often leave a significant psychological and spiritual “footprint” on affected communities. Thus, the purpose of this article is to introduce readers to empirical research on the psychology of religion/spirituality and disasters as well as to introduce a framework for spiritually oriented disaster psychology.
Interpersonal trauma is pervasive globally and may result in long-term consequences physically, cognitively, behaviorally, socially, and spiritually (Bryant-Davis, 2005b). One of the protective factors that have emerged in the literature is religious coping. Religious coping, spirituality, and faith-based approaches to trauma recovery include endorsement of beliefs, engagement in behaviors, and access to support from faith communities. Compared with negative religious coping, spirituality and positive religious coping have been associated with decreased psychological distress, a finding established with survivors of child abuse, sexual violence, intimate partner violence, community violence, and war. This article focuses on spiritual and religious coping among survivors of child abuse, sexual violence, and war; however, research demonstrates increased use of positive religious coping among some survivors with higher rates of posttraumatic stress disorder. Much of the scholarship in this area includes qualitative studies with populations who face increased vulnerability to interpersonal trauma. Research in this area covers the life span from childhood to later adulthood and encompasses both domestic and international studies. The implications of research findings are explored, and future research needs are described. This line of research supports the American Psychological Association (2010) ethical standards that note the recognition of spiritual and religious faith traditions as important aspects of the provision of ethical treatment. Researchers, clinicians, and advocates for trauma survivors are encouraged to attend to the faith traditions and beliefs of persons confronting the potential devastation of traumatic events. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved).
This article provides basic information for school-based mental health professionals, teachers, staff, and administrators to support students coping with grief, and more specifically, grief related to death. The information is consolidated into guidelines and key points in providing support; suggested children's books and activities; Web sites with additional resources, information, and handouts for parents and teachers; and a list of key readings further explaining how children understand and cope with grief.
Spirituality and religion are important but often neglected areas of clinical exploration. In recent years there has been some growth in traumatic studies' literature with regard to religion and spirituality in the provision of mental health services. However, while these studies demonstrate the importance of religious and spiritually competent care, much of the research involved refers to adults and has less emphasis on how children and adolescents utilize these constructs. In particular, a review of the literature reveals a limited body of research that explores how children apply religion and spirituality when coping with traumatic events. This literature review aims to contribute to the existing knowledge base by exploring the role of religion and spirituality in the lives of children and adolescents who have been, or are currently subjected to traumatic experience. It aims to delineate ways to incorporate and acknowledge the religion and spirituality of children and adolescents who are trauma survivors in treatment.
On April 20, 1999, two students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, armed with guns, knives, and bombs, terrorized Columbine High School, killing 13 individuals, wounding 24, and emotionally traumatizing thousands. The perpetrators then completed suicide. Moving beyond the tragic events of that day, this study focused on memorializing victims' lives. In particular, the planning of Columbine Memorial was considered from three committee leaders' perspectives. Supplementing their input, additional information was gathered from the memorial's official website and news articles describing related activities. This information is summarized, offering suggestions for planning permanent memorials and facilitating grief.
In an effort to promote the social and cognitive compe- tence of youth, school psychologists must be prepared to address a multitude of contextual factors and life events that impact children's performance and adjustment in school and subsequent developmental trajectories. The domain of crisis preparedness and intervention has received increased attention during the past decade (as evidenced by a growing school crisis intervention literature) and is currently a train- ing standard for school psychologists in some parts of the world. Crisis situations may emerge following natural disasters such as floods, fires, tornadoes or earthquakes and also from human generated situa- tions such as bombings and school shootings. Each of these events is likely to affect the children and families in schools and communities by presenting them with problems that will be challenging to cope with. There are a variety of crisis preparedness and intervention models and strategies available to address crisis situations. Without a shared foundation for crisis intervention, responding to crisis situations may be further complicated, especially in situations where international colleagues are collaborating. Therefore, a shared foundation that includes both preparedness and intervention while emphasizing both developmental and school considerations will be invaluable in our efforts to facilitate collaboration among diverse colleagues across multiple contexts. The purpose of this article is to
During and following natural or man-made disasters, relief efforts have a long history of initially focusing on basic survival needs, then restoring community stability. Disaster mental health is a relatively new aspect of relief efforts, particularly in regard to children’s needs. After reviewing objectives of major relief organizations
and summarizing current research in light of practitioners’ input, suggestions and resources are offered to strengthen cultural sensitivity in school-based disaster mental health services.
Religion and spirituality are deeply rooted in tradi- tional African American culture. Data suggest that African American adolescents maintain higher base- line rates of religious activities and beliefs than their peers (Bachman, Johnston, & O'Malley, 2005; Smith, Faris, Denton, & Regnerus, 2003). Recognizing these data, this article examines strategies for helping school counselors enhance their multicultural counseling competence through the integration of African American adolescents' value orientations and belief systems in counseling aimed to maximize academic, career, and personal/social development.
Comprehensive school counseling programs (CSCPs) have evolved into well-articulated organizational frameworks that will successfully guide school counseling practice for years to come (American School Counselor Association [ASCA], 2003; Gysbers & Henderson, 2000, 2005). At their heart, CSCPs emphasize that as society and families continue to change, counselors can no longer rely on outdated, reactive interventions focused mostly on students at risk for school failure or those heading toward further education or training. CSCPs have given counselors a holistic and prevention-oriented structure to assist all students with more effective services, while at the same time supporting the teaching-learning activities going on in the school. This article's primary aim is to make the case that CSCPs and the students' they serve would benefit from adopting a more holistic or sociocultural perspective of human development--one that extends to the spiritual. To do so, the author first discusses the characteristics of this wider view of spirituality in such a way that most stakeholders with different faith traditions can generally support. Second, he provides a rationale for introducing spirituality into comprehensive programs. Third, before concluding, applications to school counseling practice are explored.
This study reviewed school-based crisis planning resources and guidelines provided by 40 state departments of education and offices of safe and drug-free schools. Content was examined for indications of cultural competency. The most frequently reported topics included: (a) assisting students with mental and physical disabilities, (b) tapping into community resources representative of diverse cultural groups, and (c) strengthening communication by addressing cross-cultural language and communication issues. Although 33 of the 40 states mentioned topics related to human diversity and cultural sensitivity, the focus was peripheral. Tying research to practical application, suggestions are made to strengthen cultural competence in school-based crisis planning, ultimately improving supportive services for all students and families.
Psychologists have become increasingly concerned with the role of religion and spirituality in resolving childhood physical and sexual abuse, particularly religion-related abuse. In treating victims of child abuse, trauma-focused cognitive behavior therapy has emerged as a leading treatment for recovery. In this article, we discuss the relevance of religious and spiritual issues in trauma-focused cognitive behavior therapy for children and teens. Using three case studies, we then present a model for assessing and treating religion and spirituality in trauma-focused cognitive behavior therapy. This model focuses on the client’s pre-existing religious and spiritual functioning as well as changes in religion/spirituality after abuse. We suggest that this approach will assist clients from various religious and spiritual affiliations to process childhood abuse. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore how mental health professionals and African American pastors and their churches could collaborate to overcome minority disaster mental health disparities. Forty-one African American pastors of churches located in south Mississippi, in counties directly affected by Hurricane Katrina, participated in semi-structured interviews approximately 1 year after the storm. The majority of participants reported being interested in collaborating with mental health professionals to: (a) develop educational and outreach opportunities, (b) lead assessment procedures, (c) offer consultation activities, (d) provide clinically focused services, and (e) utilize spiritual resources and support. Participants provided further insight into how these collaborative activities could be modified to meet post-disaster needs and offered novel applications. Following from these discussions, the article provides a number of recommendations that can be used to aid in the development of disaster collaborative activities between African American pastors and churches and mental health professionals to serve minority communities while also decreasing disparities.
Has the disparity in religiosity between clinicians and the general public decreased in recent years? Clinician members of the American Psychological Association (APA) were surveyed regarding their religion and spirituality. The survey was sent to 489 randomly selected members of APA, of whom 258 (53%) replied. Items were drawn from prior surveys to allow this APA sample to be compared with the general U.S. population and with an earlier survey of psychotherapists by A. E. Bergin and J. P. Jensen (see record
1990-18246-001). Although no less religious than A. E. Bergin and J. P. Jensen's (1990) sample, psychologists remained far less religious than the clients they serve. The vast majority, however, regarded religion as beneficial (82%) rather than harmful (7%) to mental health. Implications for clinical practice and training are considered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This third edition provides a comprehensive framework of values, knowledge, and skills for spiritually sensitive and culturally appropriate social work practice with diverse religious and nonreligious people. It includes 40 case examples and stories that illustrate theory and practice related to health, mental health, youth work, gerontology, end of life, and other fields. Each chapter includes learning exercises to promote readers' personal and professional development. Spiritual perspectives include Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Indigenous, Islam, Judaism, Existentialism, and Transpersonal and Deep Ecological Theories. Intersectionalities of diversities of spiritual perspective, culture, gender, disability, and LGBTQI issues are addressed. Skills are presented for spiritual assessment, mindfulness, meditation, ritual, forgiveness, administration, and community collaboration. International surveys and global perspective address social work practices, codes of ethics, and principles for inclusive compassion and justice.
Authors discuss the importance of school counselors addressing spiritual and religious issues in ethically meeting the developmental and cultural needs of K-12 students. Domains of spiritual and religious competence for professional counselors, published by the Association for Spiritual, Ethical, and Religious Values in Counseling (ASERVIC, 2009), are examined in relation to their relevance for professional school counselors. The authors introduce expert-reviewed Spiritual and Religious Competencies for School Counselors to supplement the American School Counselor Association (ASCA) School Counselor Competencies (ASCA, 2012). Implications for practice are presented along with strategies for integrating the competencies into a comprehensive school counseling program.
Review of book, P. Scott Richards and Allen E. Bergin (Au.) Handbook of Psychotherapy and Religious Diversity. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2000, 518 pp., ISBN 1-557-98624-X. Reviewed by Timothy B. Smith.
Religion and spirituality (R/S) are important factors in the lives of many individuals. Yet, R/S and their impact on mental health are topics that are often overlooked in clinical practice. We offer a critical perspective on the integration of R/S in cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). We discuss factors that have contributed to the relative lack of attention to R/S in mainstream psychotherapies in general and CBT in particular, and examine the use of CBT with R/S clients. We suggest ways to conceptualize and adapt CBT strategies, including mindfulness, so that they can be effectively used with R/S clients.
Considering the healing power of giving, schools should first lead students to observe and celebrate others’ efforts (e.g., the heroic acts of courageous people following the September 11 attack) and then encourage students to plan and participate in volunteering activities or other tasks that contribute to the class, school, or community. Schools should devise ways to foster prosocial action that suits the situation, location, budget, and student ages. Students can participate in fundraising and donation events such as making and selling home-baked cookies, hand-drawn banners, or teddy bears with personal notes about the disaster victims attached. In certain disasters, like during a flood, children can become actively involved in simple tasks such as becoming messengers and refreshment bringers to the rescue team. When dealing with the death of a classmate or teacher, students can become involved in making a class scrapbook or memorial wall.
Mental health services for students across the developmental spectrum are often limited and difficult to access (National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, 2008). For example, about 70 % of school-aged children and adolescents with a mental health disorder do not receive treatment (Greenberg et al., 2003). Because education in the USA is an entitlement for all children, schools have been identified by the federal government as a natural setting and best site to provide mental health treatment and prevention services due to the large number of children and adolescents who can be reached in a school location (Anglin, 2003). In recognition of the value of providing services directly where students are, over the past 20 years, policies and programs that integrate mental health services into schools have flourished, and research continues to demonstrate their positive impacts on educational and mental health outcomes of students. The Surgeon General’s report on Children’s Mental Health (US Department of Health and Human Services, 2000) and the President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health (New Freedom Commission on Mental Health, 2003) while identifying schools as a major setting for providing mental healthcare utilization children and adolescents did not address funding issues related to how to finance these recommended services. Developing and sustaining funding streams to support the delivery of school mental health services and prevention programs continues to be an obstacle at local, state, and national levels (Evans et al., 2003).
In recent years, there have been increasing efforts to attend to religious and spiritual issues within clinical/counselling psychology. However, there is limited research demonstrating how successfully such content is integrated into existing training programmes. This investigation sought to review primary research literature related to training in religion and spirituality within accredited training programmes. Six studies were identified which met the inclusion criteria of this review and data were extracted for analysis using a thematic analytic technique. Five main themes were generated: training modalities, specialised training, systematic implementation, perception of religion and spirituality, and research support. Findings suggest that religious issues are being neglected within current programmes, although there is evidence that this is being reconciled through increasing levels of training.
This book presents innovative interventions for youth with severe emotional and behavioral disorders. The book is designed to fill a gap between the knowledge base and clinical practice through its presentation of theory, practice parameters, training requirements, and research evidence. Featuring community-based and state-of-the-art services for youth with severe emotional and behavioral disorders and their families, this book describes each intervention in depth, along with the supporting evidence for its utility. Most chapters present a single intervention as an alternative to institutional care. Shared characteristics of these interventions include delivery of services in the community (homes, schools, and neighborhoods) provided largely by parents and paraprofessional staff. The interventions are appropriate to use in any of the child human services sectors and have been developed in the field with real-world child and family clients. In addition, they offer a reduced cost in comparison to institutional care. Several chapters address diagnostic-specific psychosocial and psychopharmacological treatments, which are likely to be provided as adjunctive treatment in a clinical setting.
The relationship between spirituality and bereavement has been studied in a multitude of disciplines, yet there is a significant gap in the counseling literature on this topic. The authors explore how spirituality is often avoided in secular counseling settings, discuss adverse effects of unresolved grief on clients' functioning, and propose the concept that spirituality can be used to help clients through the bereavement process. Finally, the authors offer research and clinically based interventions that counselors, particularly those who do not identify as faith-based, can use to incorporate spirituality into their work with bereaved clients.
Is spiritual diversity a neglected dimension in preparation for multicultural competency? The authors present an interdisciplinary overview of research related to multicultural training in spirituality and religion to address this issue. Findings indicate that counseling program leaders have minimal preparation in spiritual and religious diversity and interventions. In addition, spiritual and religious themes appear to be minimally included in counseling program curricula. Some evidence also indicates that religious and spiritual diversity is not considered as important in multicultural training as are other kinds of diversity. A movement to include spirituality and religious content in accreditation guidelines, however, points to a possible shift to expand preparation for religious and spiritual competency. The article concludes with implications for counselor preparation and supervision.
Based on specific school and community tragedies, this article reviews difficult situations and how students’ spiritual and religious beliefs were incorporated into school-based grief interventions. Suggestions are made to strengthen this often untapped resource, encouraging school-based mental health professionals to consult with community spiritual leaders and parents, exploring students’ spiritual resources and more effectively blending spiritually-based interventions across settings.
Although a sizable literature investigates and describes children’s grief, the majority of information focuses on typically developing children. Far less has been published about the loss and grief of children with developmental disabilities (DD), even though this population experiences significant and multiple losses, increasing their vulnerability to negative outcomes. Addressing this gap in scholarship, this article explicates common losses and important grief-related challenges experienced by children with DD. An overview of practice guidelines is provided to enhance the efforts of school-based mental health professionals in supporting this vulnerable population.
This article offers suggestions for strengthening school-based grief support following an adolescent’s death. Such interventions must be considered within the context of: (a) development during adolescence; (b) the role of peers in adolescent development; and (c) the fact that an adolescent peer’s death is a non-normative life crisis in developed countries. Review of those three topics leads to an overview of death during adolescence; an exploration of adolescent bereavement, grief, and mourning; consideration of disenfranchised grief in relation to an adolescent peer’s death; and an integration of this foundational knowledge in supporting bereaved adolescents within a school setting.
Play therapy is a highly adaptable treatment method that can be modified according to children’s ages, circumstances, and settings in which counseling occurs. Play therapy may be used in schools, community settings, and homes to help children following the death of a significant other. After reviewing basic developmental factors that affect children’s ability to comprehend the meaning of death, the article discusses the special circumstances of grief in different situations, including community-based counseling after Hurricane Katrina, school-based group play therapy following a teacher’s death, and conjoint parent-child play therapy after a father’s death in a terrorist attack. Increasing the acceptability and effectiveness of play therapy, professionals must consider and incorporate family and community traditions and beliefs. Additionally, professionals are encouraged to support teachers and parents in utilizing play-based activities to facilitate children’s expressions of grief.
Following traumatic deaths children may develop Childhood Traumatic Grief (CTG), a condition in which trauma symptoms interfere with adaptive child grieving. Educators have an important role in supporting children who have CTG. Key contributions that educators can make are to (a) recognize CTG symptoms in school settings; (b) refer children for mental health evaluations when appropriate; (c) recognize reminders that trigger trauma symptoms and identify ways to manage these triggers and responses in school settings; (d) support CTG treatments in school by reinforcing children’s use of stress-management strategies; (e) respect confidentiality; (f) recognize the importance of cultural issues in CTG; and (g) maintain good communication with parents and other helping professionals.
This article argues that planning for community resilience to environmental disasters needs to give greater consideration to the potentials for response and recovery contributions available through local-level, informal social capital networks, as well as from the more formal policy and planning channels. To demonstrate the potential for mobilizing social capital resources to aid disaster response and recovery, the article provides a microlevel examination of the social capital mobilization process that occurred after tornadoes unexpectedly struck a rural Appalachian region in April 2011. It examines the mobilization process and types of labor and supply resources rapidly generated through community-level social networks in the first weeks of disaster response and recovery. The article situates this study in the context of social capital disaster literature, and considers its lessons and applications for disaster planning.
Students with high-incidence disabilities (e.g., specific learning disabilities, behavioral disorders, mild mental retardation) can benefit from using bibliotherapy by learning how to become proactive problem solvers. Often students with high-incidence disabilities are characterized as inefficient in recognizing and solving problems. By learning a problem-solving strategy and applying it to children's literature titles, students with disabilities can learn to become independent and effective problem solvers.
This article proposes that school communities are significant public places that help shape identity and can also contribute to social and emotional well‐being. If school communities respond appropriately to crises and trauma that affect the young, learning becomes social and emotional as well as academic. School communities offer an opportunity for positive impact, since, during times of crisis – as they are experiencing loss and grief – children and youth turn to parents, peers and teachers to help them make sense of their worlds.Several aspects of making sense of the world are implied in this article, namely, finding a sense of meaning and purpose, experiencing coherence in relation to life goals and feeling a degree of connectedness towards school and schooling. These aspects influence well‐being in children and youth. An argument is made to promote whole school communities by exploring the kind of community schools can become when they attend to spirituality as a sense of connectedness and if they address loss and grief holistically. In outlining qualities of a whole school community approach, linkages are made among terms such as spirituality, loss, grief and mental health to reveal the importance of people and place in the well‐being of children and adolescents. The article proposes that creating a whole school community approach relies on acknowledging a communal experience, not only the individual experiences, of loss.
For many years the literature in the field of family therapy was silent as to the religious and spiritual aspects of clients' lives. During the past five years, however, many voices have come forth calling attention to the importance of bringing spirituality and religion into our conversations with clients. The result of these new voices has been a significant increase in attention to spirituality in journal articles, books, and presentations at national conferences. While there appears to be a strong movement in favor of bringing spirituality and religion into the therapy room, there have been no published studies in marriage and family therapy journals that explore marriage and family therapists' beliefs about the appropriateness of addressing spiritual issues in therapy. The purpose of this study was to fill this gap in the literature by examining the beliefs of a random sample of clinical members of AAMFT in respect to this issue.
In this article, the importance of conducting a religious and spiritual assessment in counseling is considered. Some essential dimensions of religion and spirituality to assess are described. The authors recommend assessment questions that can be asked during clinical interviews or included on written intake questionnaires. They also briefly describe a few standardized religious and spiritual assessment instruments. Finally, they offer suggestions for conducting spiritual assessments in school settings.
Spirituality is a powerful dimension of human experience, with growing importance and diversity in today's changing world. Yet it has long been regarded as off-limits in clinical training and practice, leaving most therapists and counselors blind to its significance and reluctant to approach it. Many have regarded clients' spirituality as a private matter not to be intruded on and best left to clergy, pastoral counselors, or faith healers. Some have worried that therapists might impose their own convictions on vulnerable clients. Others fear the intensity of feelings and conflicts that can be aroused by delving into spiritual issues.
This volume is intended as a sourcebook to inform and inspire mental health, health care, pastoral, and human service professionals of all disciplines about this dimension in clinical work with couples and families. The aim of this book is to open family therapy practice to spirituality: to explore clients' spiritual beliefs and practices, to understand those that have constrained clients' growth, and to tap resources for resilience and transformation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This article reviews the research on resilience in order to delineate its significance and potential for understanding normal development. Resilience refers to the process of, capacity for, or outcome of successful adaptation despite challenging or threatening circumstances. Three resilience phenomena are reviewed: (a) good outcomes in high-risk children, (b) sustained competence in children under stress, and (c) recovery from trauma. It is concluded that human psychological development is highly buffered and that long-lasting consequences of adversity usually are associated with either organic damage or severe interference in the normative protective processes embedded in the caregiving system. Children who experience chronic adversity fare better or recover more successfully when they have a positive relationship with a competent adult, they are good learners and problem-solvers, they are engaging to other people, and they have areas of competence and perceived efficacy valued by self or society. Future studies of resilience will need to focus on processes that facilitate adaptation. Such studies have the potential to illuminate the range and self-righting properties of, constraints on, and linkages among different aspects of cognitive, emotional, and social development.