Page 188 - Creating Spiritual and Psychological Resilience

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“to Do no Harm” Spiritual Care
and ethnomedical Competence

Four Cases of Psychosocial trauma Recovery for the
2004 tsunami and 2005 earthquake in South Asia

Siddharth Ashvin Shah

Indeed there was a near melee of activity from the large number of agen-
cies who rushed to the region, albeit most of them without any previ-
ous experience of a country like Sri Lanka, its culture and background
problems. Many came specifically to provide mental health assistance
to the “traumatized victims” of the tsunami. But the question is: Were
such communities seeking mental health and psychosocial assistance
framed in this way? The impressions gained from field-level discus-
sions are that they were not. They did not want counseling, instead
pointing to their shattered homes and livelihoods. The children were
observed to be sad, and a few with nightmares, but well functioning
and keen to have their schools rebuilt. (Jayawickrama, 2006, p. 2)

Introduction

How can spiritual care be appropriately and safely integrated into psy-
chosocial trauma recovery work? What constitutes “appropriateness” vis-
à-vis the diversity of psychological, social, and medical tasks that need
to be accomplished in global disaster relief? In order to respond to such
questions, this chapter will present a framework involving refashioned
categories and new terminology in hopes of bringing to life the pitfalls
and potential solutions of global trauma work. Such pitfalls and a review
of past recommendations will be outlined. Next, four case studies of col-
laboration from South Asia will be discussed through fieldwork vignettes

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