Tag Archives: trauma

July 6, 2016 · 4:00 pm

Reading the Bible as a Refugee


Because we are enculturated people, we always read Scripture from a particular vantage point. Sometimes it can be helpful to consider the lens we use and to try reading the Bible from the vantage point of others. I’d like to suggest that you take a tour of the Bible through the eyes of a refugee–a displaced person. Some 60 million people in the world today live displaced from their homes due to human and natural caused disasters. They have lost most if not all of their comforts (language, home, family, land, food, community, protection, job, etc).

Does the bible have anything to say about their experiences?

Right off, we see Adam and Eve, forcibly displaced from their lovely home, barred by an angel with a flaming sword, never to return. We often think about their culpability. It was their own sin that caused this trouble. Set aside that fact. Imagine what it was like for them to be removed from the best place ever to live and then to live for over 900 years in exile where nothing could compare to what was lost.

At the other end of the Bible we have John writing Revelation from…wait for it…exile on Patmos. In between these bookends, we have Abraham as sojourner. Israel moves to Egypt to escape a famine only to be enslaved for 400 years. Generations later David is on the run from Saul. Still later, both the Northern and Southern Kingdoms are sent off to exile with only a small remnant able to return after 70 years. Displacement doesn’t stop at the end of the Old Testament. Jesus’ first life experience is on the run from King Herod. Later, after Pentecost, Christians flee Jerusalem to avoid Jewish and Roman persecution.

Refugees from Syria

But there is much more to see in the Bible than examples of displacement. Consider these biblical themes that relate to refugee experiences:

  1. God pursues displaced people. God chases down Adam and Eve after their sin. During the time of the Judges, God becomes impatient with Israel’s misery
  2. God protects even within trouble. When Cain is exiled for murdering Abel, God marks Cain in order to protect him. Israel grows while enslaved. Exiles in Babylon rise to leadership.
  3. God sees our troubles and he is moved by it. Notice God’s special kindness to Hagar.
  4. God wants to hear our complaints. With 1/3 of the Psalms in the form of laments, it is clear God desires to hear our complaints and groaning. He even writes words for us to repeat when we can’t find our own.
  5. God invites us to share in his life by willingly displacing himself to share in our pain. The incarnation reveals a God who willingly leaves perfection in relationship and community and lowers himself into a world of war and brokenness. His work enables us to enter in with those who have been displaced, “for such a time as this.”
  6. God prepares a place where we will one day be at home again. One day, we will all be at home in our true country with bodies that work as they were originally designed.

These truths do not remove the pain of displacement now. God’s protection in this world is not one that keeps us from all harm. In fact, our relationship with him promises that sharing in his death and resurrection we will face sorrow upon sorrow. However, knowing that God pursues us, sits with us, listening to our complaints, and provides blessings in the midst of hardship gives us hope for the day with all will be made right.

So, the next time you hear about the political and social challenges due to illegal immigration in the United States or the crisis in the Middle East and Europe, let that be a reminder to go to your Bible and read as if you are yourself displaced. Surely, we all need to work together to find solutions to these problems we face today. I suspect, however, we will be more prepared when we have the mind of Christ regarding displaced peoples. See how that perspective shapes how you live your life today and how you decide to respond to those in greater need than yourself.

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April 1, 2016 · 7:00 am

Making the Church a Safe Place for victims of abuse


This Saturday I will be attending and presenting Cairn University’s Faith in Practice conference hosted by their counseling center and department (free but you need to register). I will be speaking about how we can make the church a safer place for adult victims of abuse and trauma. If you want to peak at the slides, click here: 2016 Cairn U Presentation.

The presentation that I will do will only be one hour so that limits what I can do. What I wish I could do is also talk much more about the systemic factors that make churches less safe places for vulnerable people. While we can all grow in better understanding the nature of trauma and how to walk alongside victims, our institutions can be systematically harmful, even when the individuals within the system have no intention to hurt others. Thus we need to keep examining the ways our systems operate that can be toxic to some. While this presentation doesn’t cover these questions, it can be good to ask,

  1. How do we handle recent or older allegations of mis-handling difficult cases?
  2. How do we handle allegations of child abuse (the victims, the family, the alleged perpetrator and family, and congregation)?
  3. Are we a safe place for people who are broken and not all tidied up?
  4. Does our system allow for ongoing lament? (Corporate and individual)?

 

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February 29, 2016 · 10:07 am

Conference on Refugees and Trauma, March 15-17


If you are in the Philadelphia area, I want to give a final shout out for an important conference put on by the American Bible Society’s Mission: Trauma Healing. This will be our 5th (I think) Community of Practice conferences where trauma recovery practitioners meet to learn and encourage each other in the work of trauma healing. If you have never been before but want to hang out with folks doing trench work around the world, this is the place to be. Missionaries, mental health experts, ethnologists, linguists, pastors, humanitarians, and everything in between are the common attendees. This tends to be a rather intimate conference where you get plenty of time to talk around tables with folks doing what they talk about.

This year our conference theme is We are Sojourners: Refugees and Trauma (conference information and registration link).  What makes me excited this year is the diversity of presenters. We have well-known psychiatrist Curt Thompson presenting on attachment injuries related to trauma. We have presentations and a documentary unveiling about African Americans in the US (yes! Refugees can live in a land for generations and not be fully “home”). There will be presentations by Diane Langberg as well as presentations by experts on the current refugee crisis from the Middle East.

In addition, there will be this activity on Tuesday night which includes musician Michael O’Brien at historic Christ Church.

Those who have attended before should realize that this is now held in Center City Philadelphia at the office of the American Bible Society and not at the Mother Boniface Spirituality Center in the North East.

If you are interested in the wide world and burdened about trauma and refugees, come and meet your family!

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January 4, 2016 · 3:00 pm

An open wound community? How can the church tackle racism?


Last February, BTS held a public dialogue on Temple’s campus entitled: From Protest to Process: Law Enforcement, Race, and Trauma, How Can the Church Become a Healing Community (the title tells you academics were involved in the process–but the topic was anything but just academic). During the Q and A time, there were several questions about what the church can do to help.

Any answer has to acknowledge that getting our heads and hearts wrapped around the problem and our wills engaged to be part of the solution is a monumental task–because it calls us to a place of discomfort. Take a minute and consider Dr. Shannon Mason’s initial  two minute response: Can the church become an open wound community? Or will She prefer to close the wound and pretend that what is underneath is healed? While Dr. Mason’s illustration can be difficult to stomach, it is nevertheless apt!

BTS Trauma Seminar from Temple from Biblical Seminary on Vimeo.

Soon after the dialogue, I wrote the following just published piece for the BTS faculty blog. I list two small steps that suburban, predominantly white, congregations can take towards making a difference in our even more racially charged world. Surely we can do more that what I suggest, but if we don’t start with ownership of the problems, how will we ever engage?

Finally, you might think that race in America is a hopeless case. It sure seems so. But one-by-one, if we can have an impact on one person’s life, and that person has a positive impact on one other…then everything is possible. It may not be in our life-time and that is okay. We are not called to win the battle but to run the race set out before us.

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December 18, 2015 · 11:39 am

Lessons learned in the Middle East


I traveled to Jordan in early November to do trauma recovery training/equipping work for Jordan Bible Society as a volunteer representative of the Trauma Healing Institute. Today, I posted a blog on the BTS faculty blog page on some of the lessons I learned there. I encourage you to check out those insights. The title of the post says, “5 Lessons Learned…” but in fact there are 6. Consider it your Christmas bonus (wink).

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December 15, 2015 · 6:30 am

So, you want to support trauma recovery?


In recent years I have witnessed significant growth in public discussions of posttraumatic stress (PTS) and trauma. This is a good thing. We want to care well for victims of natural disasters and political and ethnic conflict. We want to care well for ex-combatants. While we work to stop the worldwide disaster of child sexual abuse and domestic violence we also want to care well for those we couldn’t protect.

What do I need to know to be able to help?

When we want to help solve a problem we look for solutions. Students in my counseling and global trauma programs see the problem (individuals and communities experiencing trauma symptoms) and come looking for solutions. They want to know which intervention strategies will be most effective in reducing or eliminating the problem of PTSD. It is a good thing to be skilled; skilled in diagnostics as well as treatment application.

However, knowledge and skills are not enough. Yes, a helper will necessarily need to know how to listen to trauma stories, how to speak and how to be silent. A helper will need to know him or herself in such a way as to recognize blind spots and other factors that may hinder the capacity to walk with a survivor. But even more importantly, the helper will need to recognize, and participate in the following trajectory of memorializing trauma while moving to recovery.¹

The trajectory of memory and recovery

  • The [trauma] Event took place: One must speak.

Having experienced trauma (the Event), speaking of trauma is a necessity if recovery is to take place. How one speaks and what is spoken will differ from person to person (thus, NEVER force someone to speak beyond what they want to speak). But whatever is spoken always leads back (explicitly or implicitly) to the Event. Nothing can be spoken without the Event in view. And resolution is really not possible. How does one resolve a genocide? A sexual assault. Rather, there is before…and after. The victim, as Brown says, “does not have the privilege of such a resolution…again and again” (p. 23). We listeners cannot fully understand, but we can listen and repeat what we have heard.

  • The Event defies description: One cannot speak.

When speaking, victims soon realize, “having tried to speak, they discover that attempts to speak of this Event are doomed” (p. 23). Brown notes that this places the messenger and listener into a double bind. It cannot be adequately spoken and understood. Normal language cannot do justice to what was experienced. If not, then the  trauma would cease to be evil, horrific and devastating but normal and inconsequential. The double bind is this: to not speak is a betrayal of the experience and to speak is a betrayal since words will always fail to do justice to what has been experienced.

Words must minimize the event to some extent. Consider 6 million Jews slaughtered or 1 million Rwandans. It is easy to speak those facts but in doing so we must minimize what those numbers mean. We cannot imagine unless we are there.

If we are going to recover and if we are going to support that recovery, we must sit with the fact that we cannot make sense of trauma. The human attempt to do so is normal…but impossible. Helpers need to avoid all attempts to answer the question of why even as we acknowledge that is is always on our lips.

  • The Event suggests an alternative: One could choose silence.

It must be recognized that victims can choose silence. In fact, silence can heighten our understanding of the unspeakableness of trauma. This is a silence that is chosen in an effort to highlight what is also being told. Consider Beethoven’s 5th symphony that has a rest just after the first four notes (dit dit dit dah [rest]). As Brown points out, the rest accentuates what has just been “spoken.”

One could (ought?) also to choose silence when descriptions of trauma will be used to critique the character of the victim. Too often when tales of trauma are told, listeners look for ways to minimize or explain away the events. “It wasn’t that bad…he didn’t mean it…it could have been worse…you’re fine now.” So, in light of these common experiences, victims and helpers have to wrestle with how and when to be silent.

But of course, silence may be the right choice for victims, it never is for observers. As Brown so starkly puts it,

Silence is no virtue; it is vice twice-compounded: indifference toward the victims, complicity with the executioners. (p. 36)

  • The Event precludes silence: One must become a messenger.

…speech betrays so we must forswear speech, but silence also betrays so we must forsake silence. (p. 36)

Per Wiesel and Brown survival by itself is insufficient. Survival must include testimony to those who live. They call it being a messenger from the dead to (and for) the living. The messenger’s job is to disturb and to awaken those who would rather not see or know of the trauma. Truth must be brought to light and wrongs ought to be acknowledged without explanations or reasons given. These things happened, period.

The messenger (and the helper) do not just speak truth to the rest of humanity but also to God. Like Job, like Jeremiah, like David, we contend with God through our questions and our laments. In the Christian world we tend to try to speak for God. But what if our time was spent raising our questions and our complaints to God? Such complaints do not have to be about our anger but rather because we cannot make sense of both the senseless–God and evil in the world.

  • The Event suggests a certain kind of messenger: A teller of tales.

If trauma presses the messengers (victim and helper) to speak and yet makes in next to impossible to effectively communicate what has happened, then the telling will have to be done in analogies. Brown suggests that storytelling is one way to bring victim and listener together. Consider how Nathan uses story to confront David. Such a story, per Brown, bridges two worlds and uses one (the story) to challenge or confront the other. Confrontations may be as direct as Nathan (You are that man!) but just as frequently these “confrontations” are affective and subtle. This is what happens when you find yourself crying during a movie that has tugged on your heart in ways you never expected. The story enables you to connect with feelings and experiences that may have just moments before, been distant and protected.

Why tell stories? Not just to have a feeling (Brown calls that merely an indulgence). Tell stories to change people; to call to action; to demand acknowledgement of injustice and movement to right wrongs.

A final thought: standing on sacred ground

This trajectory (struggle to voice, necessity of silence, becoming messengers and storytellers to call the world to action) does not often happen in a linear fashion. Rather, it happens in fits and starts; in quiet and rageful voices. But if you see evidences of someone attempting to speak about a trauma you are witnessing the Spirit speaking,

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. 27 And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. (Rom 8:26-7)

When you see those groanings be silent. You are standing on sacred ground.

___

¹This trajectory of remembering trauma and becoming a messenger can be found in Robert McAfee Brown’s Elie Wiesel: Messenger to all Humanity, Rev ed. This book is a kind of commentary on Wiesel’s work and so this trajectory intersperses Wiesel’s quotes and thoughts with the authors. These five points are made by Brown on pages 20-49 in much greater clarity and artistry than I can in this space.

 

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September 19, 2015 · 12:33 pm

What can we do about the refugee crisis?


If you have any connection to the outside world you know that the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe is undergoing a refugee crisis of massive proportions. Syrian and Iraqi refugees are finding their way to Europe to try to escape the violence, hunger, and lack of basic resources resulting from ongoing conflicts in both countries. For years, Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey have borne most of the brunt of the burdan from the crisis, but now refugees are risking their lives crossing the Mediterranean to Europe. What was a regional conflict is now a wider political and economic challenge. 

If you are like me you read the stories, see the pictures, dig into the complexities of the problem and end up feeling helpless or hopeless. Someone has to do something. But what? Is there anything you and I can do to help? We know we can pray and we know we can give money to aid organizations. However, I suspect we often fail to do either of these things because will my prayers or fifty dollars do anything, realluy? 

Can we do anything else? Here are a few things I think merit consideration as doing our part. They may not do anything at all in the big picture, but then again, they may help you take one more step, even if only helping you to pray more pointedly and persistently. 

  1. Choose to be continuously educated. It is easy to make sweeping generalizations about those who are fleeing violence, about those in host countries, about the various armed militias. Sometimes we are right but far too often we develop simplistic formulas for the problem and solutions. Read outside of your normal news sources. If you are in the U.S., check out the stories by BBC and Al Jazeera news corps. Especially look for news stories about the refugees, who they are and what they are looking for. Many journalists in this area tweet out their stories/blogs. Find them and read them. Don’t allow hopeless feelings keep you from bearing witness to the tragedies nor from calling on God to intervene.
  2. Study the Scriptures regarding the God who loves refugees, hears their cries (think Exodus) and his son who was himself a refugee (check out Matthew 2). What is God’s mind on caring for those who have nothing and who will cost us something if we do care for them? Too often we can become consumed with political and economic realities and forget that God’s word calls us to love immigrant and outsider among us. In doing so, challenge your common assumptions about how we should relate to Muslim outsiders. 
  3. Learn a lay-counselor trauma training model.  The American Bible Society has a program, Healing Wounds of Trauma. This program is Scripture-engaged, dialogical, lay-oriented, and cascade oriented. You can get trained by attending a low-cost equipping session (4-5 days) and then train others (hence the cascade effect). You do not need to be a counselor but plenty of counselors love this model because it is so easily transferrable. Translated and contextualized into many languages, you can teach in English and the participants can teach in their own communities in their own language. Wait, you migh think, I don’t know any refugees in my community. While there may not be any Syrian refugees (then again, there many well be!), immigrants and refugees are all around us. Find out who is serving them (e.g., Lutheran Social Services, World Relief, etc.) and see if you can use this materials with them. This particular program isn’t the only one out there but it is effective and budget friendly. 
  4. Of course, give and pray. Once you get connected to local refugee serving organizations, you will have a better sense of who is serving in your community and how your time, talent, and treasure could be used. 

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July 27, 2015 · 9:22 am

How childhood trauma could be mistaken for ADHD


This article: (http://acestoohigh.com/2014/07/07/how-childhood-trauma-could-be-mistaken-for-adhd/) was sent to me by a GTRI student (Thanks Charity!). Worth the read to consider how we may mistake hyperactivity as evidence of ADHD vs. evidence of hypervigilance and PTSD. Given the high prevelance of ADHD diagnoses in areas where there is also much trauma (urban and impoverished settings), it stands to reason that there could be significant misdiagnoses. I began to understand this problem some 17 years ago during my pre and post doc experience in small town Concord, New Hampshire. We saw all sorts of boys first diagnosed with ADHD, then diagnosed (and heavily drugged) with bipolar disorder. Back then we called them emotionally-dysregulated. Nearly all had been subject to domestic violence and had witnessed their mothers abused by boyfriends. A large number had seen their mothers had guns held to their heads. Such experiences shape a child and so it stands to reason that a brain bathed in the hormones released during terror and horror would have an impact. It is also true that in this same population there was a high incidence of tobacco use, also known to be highly correlated with ADHD diagnosed children.

My suspicion is that one day we will find syndromes that encompass both diagnoses but that will not be until we have better understanding and technology to assess what is happening in the brain during an episode of “hyperactivity.”

Check out the above article and if you are a clinician, consider alternative explanations for ADHD diagnosed children. Do you see signs of emotion dysregulation? And if so, how might that be more central feature of the treatment plan?

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May 16, 2015 · 11:57 am

Evil Hours (David Morris): A Must-Read for Mental Health Professionals


A bit ago, I blogged on David Morris’ new book, “The Evil Hours: A Biography of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder” and his NPR interview. [You can read my previous post here.] Having just finished reading the text, I want to highlight a few more insights about the book.

Morris does an excellent job describing his experience of trauma and then expanding to the history of PTSD and its impact, both on those going to war and those who have experienced civilian traumas. For those who wonder why Vietnam vets struggle more than WWII vets, Morris helps reveal the falseness of that belief in the beginning of chapter 5.

But the most important chapters of the book are chapters 6 through 9 where he examines therapies designed for PTSD, how research protocols designed to help us know which treatments work best may harm, how drugs and alternative interventions (e.g., yoga) may help and how to think about posttraumatic growth.

Though these chapters are his experience, I would highly recommend every MHP to read these chapters. Skip the first chapters if you must (you should not!) but these are paramount if you are going to work with traumatized individuals. Here are just a few reasons why:

  • Following protocol for therapy can harm a patient. Don’t get me wrong, research IS necessary. But when a protocol is harming a patient, it is important to make sure that research goals do not become primary over the needs of the one who is in need.
  • Prolonged Exposure, the gold standard treatment, has a HUGE drop-out rate. Somewhere around 54%. That should give us great pause. Surgery hurts. PE is like surgery but repeated opening of a wound. The dropout rate should tell us that imaginal work can re-traumatize. There are other methods that may work just a well but do less damage in the process. I think about the changes in the last 10 years for breast cancer. We are discovering that not everyone needs bilateral breast removal to survive. Not everyone needs 30 days of radiation as radiation at the time of lumpectomy may work just as well for some patients. So, we must be less fixed in our minds on treatment protocols and be considering if the patient can improve with less radical treatment options.
  • Cognitive therapies are good but over-emphasize think right = feel right. Such work could ignore the moral complexity of life, especially for those who have moral injuries.
  • The person of the therapist is more important than the treatment modality. This is not to say that the modality is of no consequence. Rather, that good interventions live or die on the capacity of the therapist to be truly human with clients.
  • Recovery must be done in community. Gutting it out alone does not work.
  • Alternatives, like yoga, works for some far better than talking, but shouldn’t be sold as a cure-all.

…yoga stands out as a uniquely effective treatment, precisely because it insists that people shut up and start listening to their bodies. Yoga works to correct the central lie of Western philosophy, which goes all the way back to Descartes, who said that the body and the mind are distinct entities that exist independent of each other. (237)

However, Morris acknowledges that yoga is, “ridiculous”, even “moronic.” Though he is also quick to say, “In the Marine Corps, we had a saying: ‘If it’s stupid but it works, then it isn’t stupid.” (238). “Placebo, wishful thinking, whatever. I’ll take the help where I can get it.” (246, discussing the mixed evidence for EMDR). Yet, be wary of proponents of any one treatment as a cure. They prey on desperate people.

The bottom line is that there is no ‘magic bullet’ for PTSD, and claims to the contrary should be taken with more than a grain of sand. (240)

  • Growth happens but not apart from ongoing trauma symptoms and changes. Too often we expect recovery to mean the removal of symptoms. But, there is no going back. Identity changes, just as it would if you lost your spouse and then got remarried. Growth needs to be observed and underlined, but not assumed to eliminate strong, continuing reminders of trauma.

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March 24, 2015 · 1:40 pm

What does recovery look like after traumatic experiences


After trauma, what does recovery look like? Is it possible to “move on?” How can you when you can never unsee or unremember what happened to you? 

Is it possible to experience joy rather than emotional pain when remembering past or ongoing hurts? If so, just what does that look and feel like for the victim? What can be expected if I am “healed”? Can I be free from the typical experience of trauma (e.g., Hopelessness, despair, anxiety, confusion, shame, anger, loss of identity, feeling stuck but the demand to act as if the trauma did not take place, and spiritual angst over the goodness and love of God)?

As Diane Langberg has so aptly reminded us, “Trauma is the mission field of this century.” Around the world there is much openness to talk about the impact of trauma and to use spiritual practices as part of the recovery process. In Christian language, we talk about healing the wounds of the heart and one of the best programs out there is the Trauma Healing Institute’s, Healing the Wounds of Trauma. This program is based on the strong Christian belief that God, through the work of the Holy Spirit and the Scriptures,  is in the business of healing wounded hearts. At the heart of this belief sits two important passages:

Isa 61:1-4 The Spirit of the Lord Yahweh is upon me, because Yahweh has anointed me, he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim release to the captives and liberation to those who are bound, to proclaim the year of Yahweh’s favor, and our God’s day of vengeance, to comfort all those in mourning, to give for those in mourning in Zion, to give them a head wrap instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, a garment of praise instead of a faint spirit. 

2 Cor 4: 16-18 Therefore we do not lose heart, but even if our outer person is being destroyed, yet our inner person is being renewed day after day. For our momentary light affliction is producing in us an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure and proportion, because we are not looking at what is seen, but what is not seen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is not seen is eternal.  

These two beautiful passages present a picture of recovery. Good news, release, favor, comfort, joy and beauty in place of mourning and oppression. Renewal in the face of affliction. But what does this mean in real life? Does a “double portion” instead of shame feel like to a victim of sexual trauma? What does renewal and release feel like after a natural disaster? 

Prognosis for Complete Recovery?

If you suffer a serious knee injury requiring surgery, you will need time for rehabilitation. But rehab does not necessarily mean you will recover the full range of motion you once had, or that  your knee will be entirely pain free when you are finished with physical therapy. Your prognosis for recovery depends on many factors such as age, extent of injury, physical health prior to the accident, and availability of quality care. Even with the best care provided to top athletes, recovery may not lead to return to top form. For example, an Olympic skier may be able to ski again but not at a quality that allows for competitive skiing. 

What about the prognosis for spiritual and emotional recovery? Of course, just as in the knee injury example, the answer must be “it depends.” Still, considering the two passages above, words like liberation, joy, release, and renewal shape our imagination for recovery. Do we imagine complete recovery to top spiritual and emotional form, without pain and limitation? It appears to me that we sometimes imagine emotional and spiritual healing without taking consideration the reality of broken bodies and a fallen world. We are not guaranteed a pain free life or faith without distressing questions. In fact, Paul’s beautiful words in 2 Corinthians bear this out. afflicted in every way, persecuted, perplexed, persecuted, struck down, always carrying around death, burdened, groaning and more. Yes, he also says not crushed, not despairing, not destroyed, but alive. But both must be considered together at the same time if we are indeed to imagine our prognosis. Recovery means comfort and lament, joy in mourning, perplexed while trusting, dying yet alive. 

Sprouts of Justice and Recovery?

Isaiah describes sprouts of justice and righteousness beginning in the recovery of the oppressed (Isa 61:11). As a gardener, I see sprouts as the beginning of hope. After planting seeds, the tiny sprouts give me hope for a later harvest but that hope is still tempered with the knowledge of the challenge of getting sprouts to develop into fruited plants. I have to be vigilant about bugs, weeds, and drought. I need to cultivate and fertilize or my sprouts will not turn into much. And even if I do everything right, the seed may be weak or the weather may mean I only have spindly or stunted plants that cannot bear much fruit. Yet, the sight of sprouts brings the hope that empowers us to keep at the gardening work. 

So, what are these sprouts of justice and recovery that victims of trauma may first see that encourage hope and further empowerment? Consider some of these: 

  • Capacity to Name Truth and Justice

Recovery begins when oppressed people find words to name injustices done to self and other. For example, a victim of domestic violence may become well aware of the subtle signs of verbal and emotional coercion, long before any physical violence. They become the canary in the mine, aware of poison that others may not yet sense. 

As this capacity grows beyond a mere sprout, the person may be able to speak the truth aloud, even with courage to say it to leaders. 

As naming capacity grows, it moves from awareness of personal risk to capacity to notice and care for the injustices others experience

  • Accepting weaknesses without hopelessness

Part of recovery requires honest reflection of the damage done. Signs of recovery include the ability to recognize limitations and working within capacity without self-hatred (though there may be lament for losses of previously held abilities). When we truly accept the “new normal” we then can stop evaluating daily life from the perspective of who we used to be

As we accept our limits, we can then begin to see the opportunities we do have even within our limitations

  • Identify resilience and new capacities in the midst of struggle

There may be new capacities we never observed before (e.g., the capacity to speak up to power, the ability to withstand rejection, increased empathy for the pain of others). We now notice these resiliences and growth as they stand on their own

Though we will not call the suffering good, we will be able to identify blessings that we have received in spite of and as a result of the trauma experienced 

Be Careful Not to Damage the Sprouts

For those who are not attempting the impossible, to “move on” from trauma and abuse, it is good to remember that sprouts are tender and can be easily damaged with too much interference. You may need to leave a few weeds you see near the fledgling plants so as not to disturb their roots or bruise the green shoots. How do we do this to the sprouts of recovery? We may unintentional limit growth by questioning why the person learning to speak the truth isn’t doing it in a even-tempered manner. Sadly, too often those in domestically violent marriages are told to stop being so dramatic and to calm down when they begin to speak about the truth of the violence they have experienced. Or, we can point out the sins of the victim as if somehow their responsive sins eliminate their right to speak up about the trauma they experienced. Or, we can hear someone accepting brokenness and accuse them of not trusting God for complete healing. 

Nurture recovery as you would a tender plant. It is a scandalous act of grace! By paying attention to safety needs, by bearing witness to trauma, by being willing to lament and to stay connected, we provide a greenhouse for such plants to grow into levels of recovery never before dreamed of. 

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Filed under Abuse, biblical counseling, christian counseling, christian psychology, Christianity, counseling skills, pastors and pastoring, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, ptsd

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