Page 43 - Creating Spiritual and Psychological Resilience

12 Creating Spiritual and Psychological Resilence

and doing direct clinical care and organizational intervention, collabora-
tion and consulting; working with Hurricane Katrina-affected individuals
and families in New York; planning and organizing several conferences on
interdisciplinary collaboration training in psychoanalytic and organiza-
tional work; traveling to Sri Lanka as an advisor/consultant in multiorgani-
zation NGO (nongovernmental organization) work a year after the tsunami
in 2004; conducting distance-learning trainings for Chinese mental health
responders after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake; conducting trainings in
Mumbai, India after the November 26, 2008 terror attacks; and, impor-
tantly, working for 2 years as a surgical resident as part of a well-functioning
surgical team, the most highly efficient group collaboration I have experi-
enced, sustained under conditions of chronic crisis and trauma. The plan-
ning processes for many of these activities, including working on this book,
was at times characterized by great difficulty collaborating leading to crisis,
when the self-induced crisis itself would then create the necessity to get the
work moving, in a vicious and inefficient, yet seemingly inalterable, cycle.
Disasters may introduce “cracks” into disaster service delivery networks,
which impair function (Gillespie & Murty, 1994).
Without the factors described in the introduction to this book, i.e.,

• The will to collaborate overriding other goals (even some of your own
other goals or the needs of the involved organizations).
• The desire and ability to be self-reflective.
• The ability to regulate one’s own emotional states to find alternatives,
such as “thoughtful-speech-as-action” to replace knee-jerk divisive
reactive action out of, for instance, anger, aggression, fear, flight and
avoidance leading to incorrect conclusions miscommunication.
• The open-mindedness and self-interest to see another’s point of view in
order to build bridges.
• A sense of putting aside short-term needs in favor of long-term ones.
• The dedication to learning to be tactful and diplomatic in addressing
hot-button topics.
• Clear leadership and appropriate delegation of authority and
responsibility.
• The willingness and ability to ignore perceived slights and set aside dif-
ferences when they might get in the way of the primary task of working
together.
• The development of a trusting relationships over time.

No applied tools will be effective as desired. With the above consider-
ations in mind (and the understanding that these approaches be tailored
to individuals and organizations, that they are a moving targets for which