Pastoral Care for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: Healing the Shattered Soul [Hardcover]

Dalene C. Fuller Rogers (Author), Harold G Koenig (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 8, 2002

Provide effective care for the members of your congregation suffering with PTSD!

This vital book is an overview of the nature of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It examines the causes, manifestations, and problems of PTSD as they relate to a person socially, spiritually, emotionally, physically, and psychologically. Stressing hope, healing, and compassion, Pastoral Care for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: Healing the Shattered Soul includes specific suggestions for the prevention of traumatic events and for using peacemaking techniques to stop violence in your clients’lives.

Pastoral Care for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a practical, understandable, professionally presented and researched working guide for clergy in parishes, for chaplains, and for seminarians who have little or no knowledge of how to pastor to people who are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. It is also for lay people who minister to those who have been traumatized. Survivors will also benefit from its affirmation for the spiritual component of healing.

This unique volume provides the practical means to support people through the healing process while maintaining their spiritual grounding, with:

• case studies that will help develop your skills
• a thoughtful discussion of the theological dimensions of trauma and suffering
• a practical methodology for crisis intervention
• an examination of the specific needs of veterans
• a look at the potential for caregiver burnout and how to prevent it
• ways that churches can contribute to the prevention of the trauma that leads to PTSD
• methods for using scripture as a source of healing for PTSD survivors

Pastoral Care for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder also defines PTSD from a mental health perspective and gives examples of the kinds of trauma that may lead to it. No one working with PTSD survivors in a spiritual setting should be without this book!

Product Details

• Hardcover: 142 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (July 8, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0789015412
• ISBN-13: 978-0789015419
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,846,748 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Practical help for Pastoral Care Providers of PTSD Victims, August 29, 2002

By 

John Oliver (Durham, NC USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Pastoral Care for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: Healing the Shattered Soul (Paperback)

In her book Pastoral Care for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: Healing the Shattered Soul, Rev. Rogers' provides a much needed introduction to the problem of providing pastoral care to individuals suffering Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). This twelve-chapter book defines PTSD, enumerates its symptoms and explores common manifestations of disease. She compellingly describes the spiritual impact of trauma via tradition Christian language but she seems overly dependant on traditional formulas of pastoral theology and pastoral care. Perhaps her most important contribution lies in her challenge to churches that the must explore more carefully how they perpetuate the abuse of power.

Herein lies my critique: while Rev. Rogers does mention a few of the newer approaches to treating PTSD, she does not caution pastors about the dangers of re-traumatization that can occur with open-ended listening to the traumatic event(s). She does not adequately engage the vitally important current research in the treatment of PTSD.

The image of the shattered soul is an excellent one in regards to PTSD. It is nice to think about the church as a reintegrating force for shattered souls, however her final chapter suggesting that the church can help prevent PTSD seems to be overly optimistic. The experience of trauma is so profoundly alienating that sufferers are likely to reject the ministry of hope in community that the church and its ministers offer.

I appreciate Rev. Rogers' recommendation that pastors refer PTSD patients to appropriate healthcare professionals, but I also believe that she could have placed more emphasis on the pastor's role as part of a treatment team for such wounded souls.

Rev. Rogers has provided an excellent overview of a topic that needs much more research. The field of pastoral care desperately needs to integrate traditional wisdom with current research findings on treatment for PTSD.

2.0 out of 5 stars Important subject, but the book does not quite match, April 20, 2011

By 

Cl Smith "AfricanJade" (U.S.A.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Pastoral Care for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: Healing the Shattered Soul (Paperback)

This is a very important subject but I felt the book did not quite come to terms with it. I had no real sense of how Pastors should approach these soldiers so deeply wounded.

10 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Reads Like a High School Term Paper, November 3, 2005

By 

Frank - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Pastoral Care for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: Healing the Shattered Soul (Hardcover)

This book read like a high school term paper. It was largely a collection of definitions and outlines from other sources.

This book is not for you if:
You believe God and His word are sufficient for our problems
You believe Pastors can and should minister to people with mental /social issues like PTSD.
You believe new age philosophy is inconsistent with God's word.

Here is a sampling of the authors opinions:
On treating PTSD: "...the pastor should not cross the line into attempting anything therapeutic with survivors"
On treatment ideas: Meditation, Reiki, polarity therapy, music therapy, holotropic breathwork.
On her sources of theology: ....contemporary feminist liberation theologians have brought to light an alternative imaging of God"
On the issue of female circumcision: "We in the white-dominated Western culture must resist imposing our cultural values on others"

The authors message seems to be. Leave the counseling to psychiatrists and psychologists and use new age approaches to healing rather than relying on God and the church community. It may be titled "Pastoral Care" but I found it to be anything but!