Diving Into the Wreck – Part 1

This week Mary Ragan, Ph.D., director of the Psychotherapy and Spirituality Institute in New York City, discusses the traumas confronted by chaplains and how one particular option for healing – touch – has now taken on new meaning. In Parts 2 and 3 in the next issues of PlainViews, Dr. Ragan looks at the effects of trauma on chaplains and new options for self-healing.

Adrienne Rich, in her poem “Diving Into the Wreck,” writes:

I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
And the treasures that prevail. [in The Fact of A Doorframe. Norton, 1984]

The fall of 2003 offered me the opportunity to meet monthly with a group of interfaith chaplains for a mini-course on trauma. The chaplains represented Jewish, Christian, and Muslim faith groups and had extensive experience in dealing with trauma. The categories of “teacher” and “student” simply did not apply in this setting. Their experience in dealing with trauma and its aftermath was unparalleled.

On 9/11, they worked at Ground Zero, at the Family Assistance Center, at the pier, and at the morgue. Only a few short weeks after that, they responded to a plane crash in Belle Harbor, NY. More recently, they consoled grieving and stunned families after the Staten Island Ferry crashed into a pier, killing ten passengers and wounding several others. These extraordinary events occurred in the midst of their already challenging daily work as chaplains—dealing with the death of a newborn or the loss of a child or the slow, painful death of a parent. All of these experiences provided the backdrop for an exploration of the topic of trauma and its consequences.

Our interest lay specifically in the effect on the chaplains themselves while dealing with these traumatic events. We wanted to see what damage had been done and what treasures prevailed. Some aspects of dealing with trauma that provided a framework for our discussion included the following:

• A recognition of the importance of clergy and other religious professionals in providing front-line services within the community for traumatized individuals and families. We know from the literature on trauma that more abuse victims, perpetrators, and family members seek help from clergy and religious leaders than from all other helping professions combined. That remarkable fact underscores the growing respect for the value of spiritual resources in the treatment of trauma, but also makes clear the intense responsibility placed on spiritual caregivers during traumatic events. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, an international leader in the psychobiology of trauma says this: “The critical thing after exposure to trauma is to get the body to calm down. . .Religious ceremonies get it: sit down, hold each other, mourn with each other. . .” [Quoted in an article by Judy From “Instant Grief Therapy May be No Quick Fix,” Boston Globe, 31 May 1999, p. D5.]. Because chaplains know that they may be the only people who can “get the body [and the soul] to calm down” during a trauma, they tend to overextend themselves and can face issues of compassion fatigue. (The author discusses issues of self-care for chaplains in part II of this series.)

• In the aftermath of the clergy sexual abuse scandal, the question of touch takes on added importance. As with any clinical or pastoral intervention, the question of touch needs to be assessed in the light of this question: “Whose needs are being met?” Touch can be used to soothe and communicate a sense of solidarity and compassion, but it can also be used to repress further expression of emotion, or to exploit. How and when the religious professional chooses touch as a supportive intervention with a traumatized person should be determined by the professional’s best judgment at the time, and should always be shaped by the need of the client and the resources and limitations of the religious professional. The concomitant question for professional caregivers is, of course, who is holding them?