Page 255 - Creating Spiritual and Psychological Resilience

224 Creating Spiritual and Psychological Resilence

recognize signs of disordered responses to disaster. At the third stage, the
clergy could be instructed to call on the clinician’s expertise to determine
whether the congregant has clinical needs. Now the parishioner may need
to receive professional Clinical Care to reduce disorder and to regain func-
tion. The COPE model is designed to provide burden reduction to clergy at
this stage by facilitating referrals to clinicians.
In the fourth stage, patients’ symptoms subside and function increases,
but they may remain at risk for relapse. As clinical care is reduced, the
normative social support offered by their religious congregations can help
to sustain the individuals’ mental health. This fourth stage is an oppor-
tunity for a return to the first stage through role restoration. Restoration,
facilitated by Community Care provides burden reduction for clinicians,
as they plan for a patient’s transition out of acute clinical care and toward
relapse prevention.

Synthesis

When we systematize our field such that we assess and respond only to the
deficits brought on after a disaster, we miss the rest of life as lived by peo-
ple. Imagine if botanists organized their work as the study of how to keep
leaves from turning yellow. As we know, botanists first study the natural
course of how plants grow green and then investigate those variables that
help plants thrive in the face of environmental challenges. So too, before a
disaster, we must catalog our communities’ natural contexts of social sup-
port. The goal of a community is to thrive. The goal of emergency respond-
ers is to leave. Therefore, it is the responsibility of responders to develop
collaboration plans before a disaster, so that community leaders, such as
the clergy, are recognized for the leaders of continuity and generativity
that they are. Therefore: Think Continuity, Prepare for Continuity, Build
Continuity, Enact Continuity.

Conclusion

How do we enact continuity? First, we recognize the continuum of
mind, body, and spirit within community that was embraced at St. Paul’s
Chapel in the days after September 11, 2001. The chapters of this book
note the structural and cultural challenges to providing a complemen-
tary continuum of care. These chapters also provide examples of how