Page 162 - Creating Spiritual and Psychological Resilience

On Reentering the Chapel 131

exploration of the experiences one has when providing postdisaster care.
In an informal one-on-one setting, a different sort of exchange can take
place. The following describes how the psychiatrist in the excerpt above
sought informal assistance from a colleague with expertise in the provi-
sion of disaster spiritual care and a new collaboration was initiated.

Ultimately, several months after Hurricane Katrina, the psychiatrist
approached a chaplain she knew from disaster preparedness exercises and
responses, with whom she had volunteered earlier in the week in a local
response. She asked if the chaplain would be willing to meet and provide con-
sultation and feedback about how to deepen her understanding of experiences
of faith after a disaster. They discussed several experiences, including one that
the psychiatrist had while providing support to survivors of Hurricane Katrina
who were living in church based shelters a month after the hurricane.
One of the survivors approached her and said he had a question he wanted
to ask a psychiatrist. He identified himself as a person of faith. He said he
wanted to talk to her about being troubled by how best to handle his expe-
rience of doubting the existence of God and being angry with God after
Hurricane Katrina. He was unsure whether to pray for restoration of his faith,
and asked whether she thought it would be mentally healthy for him to do
this, or whether it would be, as he put it, masochistic. They spoke together and
explored his ambivalence about whether it made sense for him to pray for the
restoration of his belief. Ultimately, at the conclusion of the conversation, he
informed her he had decided it did make sense for him to pray for the restora-
tion of his faith.
This experience left the psychiatrist wanting to know more about the expe-
rience of faith after disasters. The chaplain was able to provide the psychiatrist
with information characterizing the psychological experience of faith, and, in
particular, that this experience often involves doubt in the existence of God as
well as passionate feelings including anger and gratitude. This helped the psy-
chiatrist develop an increased tolerance for ambiguity and uncertainty around
different dimensions of the experience of faith, and an improved feeling of con-
fidence about discussion of spiritual experiences. Whether considered from a
psychological or a theological perspective, this exchange raises a number of
fascinating questions: Once a person feels that he or she has lost their faith that
God exists, what is it like to pray to have it restored? If one no longer believes in
God, then what does it mean to pray? If one does pray for restoration of belief,
doesn’t this suggest that, in fact, belief is still there?
These and other questions initiated the process the two colleagues termed
“spiritual supervision.” In the first iteration of this model, the chaplain agreed
to offer her expertise and knowledge about spiritual concerns to help the psy-
chiatrist understand how to support the efforts of survivors, who identify as
people of faith, tap into spiritual resources recovery from psychiatric symptoms
and emotional distress. Creating a meeting time for “spiritual supervision” per-
mitted these colleagues to collaborate in an ongoing exploration of the intersec-
tion between mental health care and spiritual care.