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Meaning Making and Disaster

The Role of Religion and Spirituality in Health Outcomes and Resilience Following Trauma

Nathan H. WhiteDurham University, UK

Meaning and Disaster Religion, Spirituality, and Disaster: Does it Make a Difference?

Challenges How Can it be Applied?

Outline

{Disaster and the Individual

Disasters ‘not only inflict physical damage and loss of life but also leave emotional and spiritual wounds that need healing before victims can rebuild their lives’ (Koenig, 2006, p. ix).

Spiritual and Religious Coping

Meaning and Disaster‘Is there meaning in natural disasters?’ (Adeney-Risakotta, 2009)

{Meaning and Psychological Integration

‘Meaning helps people to psychologically integrate traumatic experiences into their existing worldviews’ (Koenig, 2006, p. 3).

‘The provision of meaning and order to the chaos of existence is a vital function of religion, as noted by the anthropologist Dr Clifford Geertz (Geertz, 1993, pp. 87–125), and may be indispensable in enabling both physical and psychological survival of the most terrifying and life-threatening experiences, as the psychiatrist Dr Viktor E. Frankl famously explained (Frankl, 1964). Belief in a loving and saving source of being, a reliever of suffering and a redeemer of our worst travails, can sustain us in the face of pain and fear of death’ (Levin, 2009).

Meaning and Religion

Positive worldview Purpose Psychological

integration Hope Personal

empowerment Sense of control

Answers to ultimate

questions Guidance for

making good decisions

Social support Role models for

how to endure suffering

(Koenig, 2006, pp. 39–42)

Ways Religion and Spirituality Aid Recovery

Positive Connectedness to

the Divine Meaning-making Sense of control Comfort from

relation to the Divine and others

Openness to change Taking time to

reflect

Negative Anger at God Using religious

activities to distract from difficulties

(King et al., 2013; Pargament et al.,

2011; Pargament et al., 2000)

Positive and Negative Religious Coping

Communities of Faith‘Increased social support and secure attachment has been shown to decrease the negative effects of trauma and increase resiliency’ (Dueck and Byron, 2012, p. 999).

Challenges‘In many disaster prone regions, religion is an essential element of culture and must be carefully considered in the planning process, and not simply dismissed as a symptom of ignorance, superstition and backwardness’ (Chester, 2005, p. 319).

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• Support individual and community structures already in place

• Appropriately integrate religion and spirituality into recovery efforts

• Develop relationships with and train faith communities

Disaster Relief Applications

Conclusion