Abstract
Written from a standpoint of religious ethics, this article interprets the work of trauma response and recovery in transcendent and moral terms not always apparent to the practitioner or institution. This article provides a broad understanding of spirituality, transcendence, and faith as these concepts relate to Judith Herman’s stages of trauma healing and the characteristics of trauma-informed response articulated by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. These features are then mapped onto specific modes of transcendence and moral themes identifiable in a wide range of religious traditions. The connective framework for this mapping is provided by utilizing the concept “bearing witness,” as synthesized from a wide range of disciplinary perspectives, to describe the work of trauma-informed response. This article concludes by recognizing bearing witness as a form of social action, a moral response with implied if not explicit religious dimensions and spiritual implications, for which an understanding of religious ethics is a helpful ally. Thus, this article concludes that religious ethics can be a valuable resource and partner in addressing the personal, systemic, and political aspects of trauma response and recovery, enabling attention to spiritual well-being of both the trauma survivor and the one responding to the survivor.
Highlights
Bearing witness to trauma, as a form of social action, is a moral response with implied if not explicit religious dimensions
This article identifies four practices of bearing witness and correlates them to Herman’s stages of trauma recovery, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)’s trauma-informed response, universal moral themes, and distinct modes of transcendence arising from religious ethics
The following mapping suggests a way of understanding bearing witness as social action, enabling attention to the spiritual well-being of both the trauma survivor and the one responding to the survivor
Summary
As a form of social action, is a moral response with implied if not explicit religious dimensions. The concept of bearing witness, a multifaceted moral activity familiar to some secular service providers, is employed as a framework to structure the parallels between religious ethics and trauma-informed response and recovery. This article identifies four practices of bearing witness and correlates them to Herman’s stages of trauma recovery, the SAMHSA’s trauma-informed response, universal moral themes, and distinct modes of transcendence arising from religious ethics. The parallels between traumatic and spiritual experiences are multiple Both kinds of experience fall outside of “normal” perception and coping, both involve the holistic body (even an “out of body experience” has meaning only in reference to the body), both are inadequately communicated through words yet demand to be shared (evidencing Herman’s dialectic of trauma, [2]), and both are politically disruptive, changing and challenging existing relationships, one’s sense of justice, and self-perceived place in the world. Transcendence is very much part of the human experience, pertaining to memories, suffering, redemption, social relationships, hope, and transformation
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