Psychological First Aid and the Role of Scientific Evidence in Christians' Provision of Disaster Spiritual and Emotional Care

After a disaster, Christians and Christian humanitarian aid organizations are usually there to respond and offer assistance. Yet, sometimes Christians offer disaster spiritual and emotional care with little awareness of what scientific evidence indicates is and is not effective. The purpose of this...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of psychology and christianity
Authors: Schruba, Alice N. (Author) ; Davis, Edward B. (Author) ; Aten, Jamie D. (Author) ; Wang, David C. (Author) ; Entwistle, David Nelson (Author) ; Boan, David (Author)
Format: Print Article
Language:English
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Published: 2018
In: Journal of psychology and christianity
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B Catastrophe / Emergency pastoral care / Emergency psychology
RelBib Classification:RG Pastoral care
ZD Psychology
Further subjects:B Disaster relief
B Mental Health
B Humanitarian assistance
B EMERGENCY management
B INTERNATIONAL relief
Description
Summary:After a disaster, Christians and Christian humanitarian aid organizations are usually there to respond and offer assistance. Yet, sometimes Christians offer disaster spiritual and emotional care with little awareness of what scientific evidence indicates is and is not effective. The purpose of this article is to help address this need by offering an overview of Psychological First Aid (PFA; APA, 1954; Brymer et al., 2006a), which is currently considered the most evidence-informed approach for providing early psychosocial help to disaster survivors. We begin by giving a historical and empirical overview of PFA and another widely used intervention - Critical Incident Stress Debriefing (CISD; Mitchell, 1983). We proceed to discuss implications for Christians who provide disaster spiritual and emotional care. Our main take-away message is that scientific evidence needs to play a key role in informing Christians' provision of disaster spiritual and emotional care. In particular, Christians would benefit from receiving training in PFA and incorporating it into their provision of disaster spiritual and emotional care.
ISSN:0733-4273
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of psychology and christianity