Page 14 - Creating Spiritual and Psychological Resilience

Introduction xiii

of this work. We have learned from experience and study that collabo-
ration requires all players to possess self-reflective processes. Without
self-awareness, collaboration can easily become mired in paranoia, com-
petition, misperception, or misunderstanding, contributing to fragmen-
tation, anxiety, and breakdown among relationships. Breakdowns of this
nature are harmful to ourselves and, even more so, to those we collectively
seek to help. A third participant–observing agent, like a third surveyor
triangulating the position of a valued destination, offers added depth of
field—both on individual and systemic levels—in addressing the various
forces that cause individual and systemic breakdowns, impeding the use-
ful delivery of services to those in need.
This book arises out of our own intimate experiences with distress,
trauma, disruption, groundlessness, fear, annihilation, terror, love, com-
munity, and healing. The creation of these chapters is deeply significant
on personal levels, and within the circle of our friendship, serving as a
marker of our professional development. We hope that contributing to this
book has also been a meaningful journey for the authors who generously
donated their time, experience, and energy with exceptional patience. We
are grateful and indebted to them. We hope the book will be a meaning-
ful experience for the reader with significance for his or her own personal
history and past, present, and future disaster work.
In the pursuit of these goals, whenever possible (though not always as
successfully as we wished), we have asked authors to balance didactics
with experiential learning and illustrative vignettes. We ardently hope
that the reader will use this book for reference, concrete application, and
directions for further study. While we have incorporated examples of col-
laboration between mental health and spiritual care providers, we have
also used examples of collaboration between other groups for their great
instructive and illustrative value in application to the question at hand.
We hold with those who paint crisis and adversity as opportunities
for growth and the creation of wisdom. The consequences of distressing
experience are largely normal and are only pathological in some cases.
Therefore, while recovery (meaning a return to a predisaster-like state) is
often identified as the goal of interventions, we have come to understand
that this is not possible, or necessarily desirable, though it may represent,
among other things, a wish or yearning for a return to innocence as if the
terrible event never happened.
People are indelibly changed by traumatic experiences. We must some-
how come to terms with what has happened and with what is possible
in changed circumstances. We must seize on opportunities for creative