Abstract.
Crisis Counseling is an activity that is directed at restoring normalcy to human psychological feeling. Crises are numerous and they are experienced frequently in everyday life. Since it’s something that is part of human life, finding out a plan that will minimize effects is the most modest thing for people to do. Furthermore, crisis may arise from natural disasters over which human beings have no control over. Perfecting the skills and procedures of reducing the effects of crisis will bring more benefits to humanity.
Introduction
A crisis, if looked at from a wider perspective, does not only refer to a traumatic experiences or events but also to the way an individual responds to such a situation. More often than not, people will get into situations that they can’t cope with easily; nonetheless, crisis is part and parcel of human life. Therefore, finding a remedy to such situation is the only important thing people can do. Other researchers describe crisis as an event or situation in which a person feels emotionally overwhelmed and finds it relatively difficult to cope with. There are various signs and symptoms of crisis, individuals under crisis exhibit various characteristics like crying frequently, not able to attend to their daily routine, not being able to eat and feeling depressed at all times.
A normal human being cannot live a life free from crisis, moreover, trauma caused by crisis have negative implication on people’s health. There are different types of crisis people experience in their lives; they come in different forms and types. The very events that trigger human emotions are greatly associated with crisis. These events include loss of jobs, marital wrangles, death of loved ones, natural calamities just to mention but a few. A crisis counselor is an individual with vast knowledge on crisis management, therefore they strive to offer remedy to individuals in crisis. The hurdles of going through a crisis sometimes become overwhelming thus pushing individuals to seek expert help. Crisis counselors offer guidance and emotional assistance to people under trauma.
Even though crisis is something that is witnessed in everyday life, understanding it to greater depth is quite difficult and needs expert knowledge. As the study was trying to explore certain aspects of crisis counseling, it became necessary to interview a crisis counselor. The counselor was found to be quite resourceful as he was able to give out some of the most crucial information that was of interest to the study. A crisis counselor is someone who interacts with victims of crisis at a personal level, moreover, the frequency of interaction was something that was seen to be important as he was able to learn and understand these people better than any other individual, not even their family members. As the interview progressed, there are particular facts that emerged, some of which were not unknown to ordinary individuals.
Crisis Intervention
The interview revealed that crisis interventions are those services aimed at restoring normalcy to individuals suffering from crisis. The crisis counselor also revealed that the primary objective of crisis intervention is to get an individual back to his equilibrium bio physiological functioning while at the same time trying to reduce the potential damage that physiological trauma can have on them. Nonetheless, crisis intervention is an activity that is aimed at repairing an individual’s psychology, the types of counseling procedures administered by crisis counselors are primarily aimed at increasing psychological stabilization among the victims of trauma. A crisis is something which can occur both at individual and societal level, to restore psychological stabilization to these individuals, a crisis counselor needs to know the exact root cause.
However traumatizing a crisis can be, victims should be able to acknowledge that a crisis is something that spans for a specific period, usually a short duration of time. Trauma has an adverse effect on an individual’s physical and psychological health, if not properly managed; an individual can be subject to serious health complications. Trauma is associated with stress and psychological imbalance during which an individual seizes to be oneself by getting into another emotional context. Individuals under trauma exhibit a different and queer behavior that cannot be easily understood. Victims of trauma are subject to immobilization and maladaptive behaviors, a quick intervention are significantly imperative.
Grief and Loss
A larger percentage of victims of crisis are those who lost loved ones in death. The crisis counselor revealed to us that most of his clients are those who lost their loved ones through death. Death is an event that leads to great trauma, the imagination of not being able to reunite with the loved ones again is an experience that makes individuals get really traumatized. Even though death is something that is not welcomed in the society, it is the major source of grief that occurs most frequently. Nonetheless, loss is an inevitable part of human life, none can escape the loss. However, grief is what is caused by the natural healing process. Although death is the major loss and cause of grief, there are other forms of loss like loss of health or a precious dream, these are not as a serious as death. Coping with the effects of loss can be tormenting and only requires psychological maturity for one to overcome.
The process of natural healing is dependent on an individual, for example, there are certain individuals who can heal after several years after the loss of a loved one. For other individuals it is short and only takes a few months. Crisis counseling should be able to reduce the period of natural healing for the individuals who experience it for a longer duration. However, it should not be rushed, people should be given time to grieve, it is believed that when they do it totality, their lives afterwards will be extremely normal, free from maladaptive behaviors. A crisis counselor should be able to guide grieving individuals as they go through the experience; furthermore, individuals are known to act uniquely to a loss. The counselor should keenly monitor such behaviors. When grieving is properly guided they can really get to normalcy within a short duration of time.
Biblical Aspects of Grief and Loss
Grief and loss is something that is very common to human beings, it’s also evident throughout the bible. In the bible, there are various individuals who experienced grief. Throughout the biblical narrative, these individuals go through extreme sadness as they grieve their loved ones. The most significant individuals, who went through loss and sadness, are Job, Hannah and Naomi. In the book of Matthew, even Jesus mourned when he lost his friend Lazarus. Consequently, he went to the village of Bethany where Lazarus just to mourn and grieve his death. Just like any other human being, Jesus also wept when he saw Lazarus’ sister mourning. Through this, it’s evident that grief and loss is normal to human being, just the same way as human suffering. Grief and loss is an experience that moves human emotions just the same way Jesus was moved by an emotional Martha to the point of weeping. In the book of Hebrews, it is revealed that Jesus is a high priest who has a greater feeling for human weakness.
Just like crisis counseling, the Bible also offers remedies to overcoming grief and loss. The first and most basic step towards overcoming grief and loss is that an individual being able to have the right perspective about death and grief. From the interview also, this study found out that crisis counselors also employ biblical aspects while trying to guide a grieving person out of grief. Furthermore, while offering counseling to victims, crisis counselors also refer to particular chapter of the bible. Grief is a subject related to human emotions. From a biblical perspective, human emotions can be remedied through spiritual service. The bible goes ahead and explains that grief serves a purpose in human life and there nothing wrong for people to grieve. The book of Ecclesiastes 7:2, says that it good to mourn with the people that go to a feast since mourning marks the end of mankind, through grief, people will learn to live with loss.
Trauma
Trauma is defined as a response to a situation or experiences that impact negatively to an individual’s psychology. There are various causes of trauma ranging from the loss of a loved one, rape or natural disasters. From the interview, it was established that indeed, trauma is caused by several things though they have one thing in common; they all affect someone’s psychology. Trauma has various impacts on people; a good example is unpredictable emotions affected people. Other effects include strained relationships with people they once adored before being affected by trauma, nonetheless, trauma leads to physical effects like nausea and headaches. Managing trauma is solely based on an individual’s perception and psychological maturity; it’s from this that they will be able to respond to crisis counseling, just as revealed by the crisis counselor.
Crisis Phases
Pastoral Counseling
Pastoral counseling is a type of counseling that bases its argument on the bible. In this type of counseling, things are looked at from a biblical perspective, furthermore, crisis is something that is widely addressed in the bible. It is believed that spiritual nourishment also forms a major part of natural healing. Counselors sometimes lean on the bible to guide individuals from crisis and restore their lives back to normalcy. From the interview, the study established that biblical guidance is also a crucial part of crisis counseling.
Natural Disasters
Counseling is a call that sometimes meets obstacles, some too tough to handle. Natural disasters occur due to the extreme forces of the Mother Nature, and human beings have little or no control against their occurrences. Besides, the occurrence of national disasters comes with destruction and fatalities to both the human and animal lives. Thus, natural disasters refer to extreme and sudden events that are mainly triggered by environmental factors that lead to untold injuries, death, and damage of properties. The world has witnessed such disaster, and as such they remain fresh in the minds of many people. Examples of these disasters include earthquakes, floods, diseases, windstorms, among other natural occurrences, in which human beings have no control. The upsurge in the occurrences of natural disasters is closely linked to global warming, which human beings have an active role.
One of the humiliating natural disasters that hit the global limelight is the Tsunami; tsunami is an earthquake that occurs in the sea thus displacing huge volumes of water in land. Other disasters include the Katrina, the Earthquakes in Japan, joining the list of the Indonesia’s tsunami. The USA has not spared with natural disasters such as tornadoes, volcanic eruptions, among other active eruptions.
The question now arises whether it is possible to redeem the condition of a victim who is either directly or indirectly involved in these disasters. Can we deploy some positive psychological theories to redeem the dying hopes of a victim who has experienced such traumas? In fact, natural disasters are wild, and least spares anyone. Such disasters might sweep an entire family, and so what’s the best the mechanism that can be deployed to quell the impacts of natural disasters to a survivor? Thus, the role of a crisis counselor is to give hopes to people who have experienced life-threatening traumas like natural disasters, regardless of whether they are directly or indirectly involved in the disaster.
The Role of the Church in Coping with Trauma and Disasters
A church holds a central role during the individual’s recovery process to trauma or disaster. Healings stems from the psychological belief that an individual holds, and it can generate headlining to such a person. Consequently, a church has a role to play in the lives of believers by giving hopes in Christ and spurring confidence to about the worldly suffering as superficial and would soon come to an end.
Principally, there is nothing greater than hopes that church spurs to the believers. In this accord, church plays a linkage role between believers and God, who is the master of all, and is above all human sufferance. Indoctrination to resilience on the physically and emotionally distressed persons leverages these people off their pressure. Therefore, the church plays a central role of creating hopes to the victims, whose problems are hard to come to terms with. Hope in Christ will simply make the traumatized be resilient, and they will adopt a stringer perception about the worldly problems, but focus on the everlasting life that God provides. In addition, the church through its counselors would invoke Biblical verses that will further spearhead resilient mission to the hearts of the aggrieved individuals.
Most churches believe that death is a rite of passage, and whenever a believer passes on, the church will attribute this death to a call by the most High to His deserving child. This means that a church can employ the same paradigm to console with the affected individuals from either trauma or natural disaster to remain steadfast, and surely understand that it was God’s time to have His people come and commune with Him in the thrones of hollies. Thus, spiritual attribute between death and tragedy to a possible call by God will serve a sure consolation to the affected person.
Church has a role to constantly revive the psychological and mental status of traumatized individuals. Coping with trauma and disasters implies that one must be ready to take up the cross of Jesus Christ whose endurance ransomed us to eternity. A case in the bible is Job who lost all, but retained eternity. Thus, the church has a role to spur faith and harden the hearts of the traumatized persons from their problems, which might be devastating. Sometime, the church can inspire its members to cling to its faith and never take cognizance of the problems that word brings on them, but strive harder to pass with Jesus to enjoy eternity.
The intervention of the church in coping with traumas and disasters is complacent with the positive psychological theory of growth in the face of adversity. The maxim of organismic theory of growth allows the church to entrench biblical teachings about sufferance to spur intrinsic motivation towards growth of the aggrieved persons. With spiritual; motivation and guidance, the traumatized persons will cope with a state of intrusion as well as avoidance, which are key to cognitive-emotional processing after the occurrence of trauma.
The role of church in coping with trauma and disasters lies within the paradigm of organismic theory, which acts in tripartite dimensions. The church members might gain high resilience to their problems and positively accommodate their conditions, and appreciate the existence of religious intervention to their corresponding situations. Positive accommodation to their problems will give them the prerequisite strength and confidence to pick up their lives from ashes and move on, while holding Christ’s mandate in leveraging them from such traumas. Indeed, these people will put up with death, diseases, or any life—threatening situation resultant to a disaster or trauma, but still hold firm to the spiritual beliefs. Another lens or organismic theory that church can spur among its believers relates to creating sanity as a result of adopting an assimilative mindset. Thus, the church will entrench a comforting notion to its believers that traumas and disasters have been subdued by God, and completely accept the reality of these incidences as mere temptations. Indeed, the church has a major role in spurring organismic valuing process that leads to an automatic actualization of positive changes within the psychological well-being of the affected individuals by positively accommodating the existing and new trauma-related news. In addition, the church must act as an enabling environment to continuously support the manifestation of positive accommodation process.
Finally, in wake of traumas and tragedies certain precautionary measures can be taken to subvert such initiatives from happening. For example, most natural disasters are attributed to global warming, which are sparked by human activities. Therefore, every individual should ensure that his or environment is clean and safe for human habitation. In addition, self-care essentials means being cautious against risky places where there is a severe outbreaks of diseases, or regions that are prone to earthquakes, mudslides or extreme flooding. These contingents of self-care measures will immune one against severe impacts associated with traumas, disasters and grief.
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