Page 12 - Creating Spiritual and Psychological Resilience

Introduction

Integrated Care: An Urgent Purpose

The purpose of this book is to advance collaboration between spiritual care
and mental health disaster responders so that disaster victims are better
advocated for and served. In a world where catastrophic disasters are com-
mon, the urgency of this task is increasingly clear. Partnerships between
professionals of divergent disciplines are crucial to overcoming the rup-
tures wrought by disasters. Such partnerships are central to creating and
nurturing communal healing. In short, these partnerships have the poten-
tial to help societies harness the transformational capacity disasters hold
for resilience—for how we might redress chronic, long-simmering ills in
new ways, comfort the bereaved, rebuild with the survivors, and perhaps
even help people to better situations than they were in prior to disasters.
While tragic, disasters also have the potential to help us to reimagine
our relationships with one another and who and what we are as a society.
When mental health professionals and clergy work together during and
after a disaster, there is a great opportunity for them to fully claim their
role as advocates for community healing. In envisioning this book, we
have embodied the principles of collaboration, which we seek to advance
in disaster relief operations. Creating Spiritual and Psychological Resilience
represents the collaborative effort of three coeditors with very different pro-
fessional backgrounds: a chaplain, a psychiatrist, and an anthropologist.
In the process of conceptualizing and completing this book, we have
taken what we each started with individually and, as is always the case
with disaster work, have learned and grown through the experience of
trial and error, gleaning knowledge and wisdom from the hard work of
others. We look at collaboration between spiritual care and mental health
caregivers in terms of avenues that exist for further exploration as well as

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