Crises and Opportunities: The Analysis of an Autobiographical Account of Bereavement and Growth Peter Bray Abstract From the moment they occur, crisis events involving personal loss can disrupt people’s lives and irrevocably change how they engage with the world. Living with the crisis of irreplaceable loss in a world that has suddenly become unfamiliar and unpredictable is both existentially and psychologically challenging. In the aftermath of crisis, how does the survivor go about relearning his existence and incorporating the inconceivable into a newly emerging view of the world? In Western society it is quite common for individuals and groups to report that their experiences of powerfully disturbing crisis events have created a set of conditions that forced them to make significant personal changes which resulted in beneficial growth. Thus, in such crises, the survivor may oscillate between emotional distress and a fuller knowledge of reality, the questioning of old core beliefs and goals and the establishment of new ones, holding on to their past self-narrative and the creation and integration of a new one, whilst attempting to maintain psychic and physical balance. This oscillation gently accommodates the pre-crisis elements of the survivor’s whole experience and enables the possibility of movement toward continuing future growth and the recognition and use of opportunities. In the last decade or so, mirroring the trend to positively reframe these disrupting states, crisis and bereavement work has become increasingly interested in those outcomes that suggest: enhanced psychological well-being and health;
Transcript
Crises and Opportunities:The Analysis of an Autobiographical Account of
Bereavement and Growth
Peter Bray
AbstractFrom the moment they occur, crisis events involvingpersonal loss can disrupt people’s lives andirrevocably change how they engage with the world.Living with the crisis of irreplaceable loss in a worldthat has suddenly become unfamiliar and unpredictableis both existentially and psychologically challenging.In the aftermath of crisis, how does the survivor goabout relearning his existence and incorporating theinconceivable into a newly emerging view of the world?In Western society it is quite common for individualsand groups to report that their experiences ofpowerfully disturbing crisis events have created a setof conditions that forced them to make significantpersonal changes which resulted in beneficial growth.Thus, in such crises, the survivor may oscillatebetween emotional distress and a fuller knowledge ofreality, the questioning of old core beliefs and goalsand the establishment of new ones, holding on to theirpast self-narrative and the creation and integration ofa new one, whilst attempting to maintain psychic andphysical balance. This oscillation gently accommodatesthe pre-crisis elements of the survivor’s wholeexperience and enables the possibility of movementtoward continuing future growth and the recognition anduse of opportunities. In the last decade or so,mirroring the trend to positively reframe thesedisrupting states, crisis and bereavement work hasbecome increasingly interested in those outcomes thatsuggest: enhanced psychological well-being and health;
personal and spiritual development and increased copingskills; and, improved relationships and enhancedpersonal resources. In this brief paper, anautobiographical account of loss is given todemonstrate how exposure to crisis can provideopportunity for significant personal transformation.The analysis uses the integrated conceptual frameworksof Lawrence Calhoun and Richard Tedeschi’s post-traumatic growth model and Stanislav and ChristinaGrof’s psycho-spiritual paradigm, blended with somecurrent ideas about crisis, grief, and bereavement.
Key Words: Autobiography, bereavement, continuingbonds, crisis, opportunity, post-traumatic growth,psycho-spiritual, sense of presence, transformation,transpersonal.
*****1. Introduction Over a decade ago my wife and children were killedin a horrific traffic accident – a crisis event thatdominated and changed the course of my life.Subsequently, this event has been powerfully redefinedby the opportunities it afforded. This is not to saythat all crises can be viewed in such a way. Manycrises leave scars that can never be relinquished orovercome. Since the accident, crisis has forced me tosit with my own existential fears and become moreacquainted with myself. Crisis has led me to alter mycareer path and to understand that I am not alone inthese experiences. It has challenged me to examinetheories of trauma and loss which have enabled me toexplain and understand my grieving, pacified my soulsearching, and caused me to wonder.
This paper reflects upon a number of extracts froma personal account which captures the first fewdevastating hours of my new life from the moment that Iwas told about my family’s accident to the point when Irealised that they were dead. The narrative itselfprovides a singularly powerful metaphor for my ownsubsequent experience and at a fundamental level hasprovided the motive power that continues to drives mepersonally and professionally. Explained in terms ofcurrent bereavement work, this paper drawssubstantially on the ideas of humanistic, positive, andtranspersonal psychologies and the collective knowledgeof psycho-poetic philosophers and practitioners.
2. The Crisis of Bereavement and Challenges toAwareness The last two decades have seen a growing interestin the phenomena of psychological and psycho-spiritualgrowth and positive health outcomes following crisisevents such as bereavement.1 It is suggested that post-crisis psycho-spiritual experiences have a positivecorrelation to post-traumatic growth.2 It is proposed
that the crisis of bereavement activates the humanpsyche in ways that allow transpersonal processes toinfluence psychological growth.3 Psychology provides themeans to interpret how spiritual factors influence thetrajectory of bereavement and allow individuals tocontextualise their post-traumatic growth experiencesin transpersonal terms.4 This paper uses a conceptualframework which interprets post-traumatic growth andpsycho-spiritual transformation experiences. The modelshould encourage practitioners to explore with theirclients the deep vein of psycho-spiritual explanationsso often left unmeasured by professionals working withcrises.5 The brief autobiographical analysis of abereavement crisis demonstrates a model that integratestwo different approaches to transformative crisis:Lawrence Calhoun and Richard Tedeschi’s model ofPosttraumatic Growth (PTG) and Stan Grof’s ‘holotropic’framework describing how people are readied for andexperience psycho-spiritual growth.6 7 Although basedupon empirically and theoretically differentfoundations both positions share surprisingly similarassumptions about the human potential for growth fromcrises and the significant role of spiritualexperience.8
It is a fact of human history that crises ofbereavement can trigger perceptual responses likeparanormal experiences, visual or auditoryhallucinations, and sensing the deceased’s presence.9
Crises that devastate reality also alter the assumptiveworld and cause profound existential intrusions thatthrough rumination require meaning reconstruction and‘relearning the world’.10 11 However, what determines thehealth of these experiences are moderating variables oftime, bond with the deceased, culture and expectationsof an afterlife.12 The experience of maintaining a
continuing bond with the deceased not only encouragesan ongoing spiritual relationship but provides aneffective adaptation to bereavement.13 It also explainswhy some challenges to awareness, such as ‘sense ofpresence’ phenomena, are concomitant to post-traumaticgrowth when mediated through socially interactivenarrative exploration.14 Thus, choiceless experiences ofbereavement crises can strengthen connection with, andawareness of, personal and collective dimensions ofspiritual experience. 3. Post-Crisis Growth and Psycho-SpiritualTransformation The following integrated framework illustrates anactive task-based approach to mourning not unlike thosethat incorporate dual-processes that strive to makesense of inner and outer challenges to reality.15 Giventhat crisis events provide significant opportunities totransition between ‘what is and was and what could be’,they may alter an individual’s relationship with thetranspersonal and correspondingly reframe experiences.16
The following model draws upon principles, processes,tasks and outcomes that identify the role of spiritualexperience on human consciousness and the positiveopportunity for potential post-crisis growth inbereavement. A. Posttraumatic Growth Tedeschi and Calhoun’s model of PTG positionsindividuals before and after crises and attributestheir growth to their management of challenges inrelation to personal beliefs, goals and lifenarratives.17 They suggest that acts of self disclosure,such as writing and talking make automatic ruminationsless distressing and allow the survivor to disengage
from previously significant goals. Thus, deliberaterumination encourages the cognitive change to occurthat supports the rebuilding of meaningful and coherentviews of self and the world that lead to thedevelopment of a realistic life narrative. They emphasise the importance of socio-culturalinteractions in two contexts: proximate - in smallsocial networks; and distal, which encompasses broaderthemes of cultural support. They suggest that in caseswhere post-traumatic growth has occurred individualsare more likely to be able to manage their distress,develop new personal narratives and acquire wisdom andnew understanding. Overcoming the challenges of traumapeople adopt new beliefs and values, view themselvesand the world differently, and have an increasedappreciation of life. As comprehensive as their model is, theirposttraumatic growth inventory (PTGI) is arguablyweakened by the limited focus on religious or spiritualchange, represented by only two out of a possible 21items of its subscale.18
6
PERSON PRE-CRISIS
Writing, talking
CHALLENGESManagement of distress, Beliefs & goals Life narrative & Physical & inner experience, & integration of new psychic balancerelationships with reality knowledge existing RUMINATION / AWARENESS
Mostly automatic and intrusive conscious
and unconscious material
SELF DISCLOSURE
Writing, talking, prayer,
creative expression,
physical activity
- Reduction of emotional distress
- Management of automatic rumination
- Disengagement from previous goals
-
SOCIOCULTURAL
Proximate:
Models for schemas
Post-traumatic
growth Distal:
Societal themesSocial support
- Rumination more deliberate
- Schema change
- Narrative development
- Processing and remaking of meaning
POST-TRAUMATIC &
PSYCHO-SPIRITUALGROWTH
NARRATIVE, WISDOM, &IMPROVED
FUNCTIONING
DISTRESS
Impededgrowth
process
MINIMUMDISTRESSUnimpeded
growth
process
CRISIS EVENT Traumatic, emotional or physical experience
TRAUMATIC EMOTIONAL OR PHYSICAL EXPERIENCE
SPIRITUAL EMERGENCY Personal crisis of consciousness
SPIRITUAL EMERGENCEBenign unfolding of
consciousness
D E V E L O P I N G P O S T - C R I S E S O P P O R T U N I T I E S
Table 1: Model of Crisis Transformation and OpportunityIn the first spirituality is described as a new experience of connectedness to the transcendent and in the second religious affiliation is used to mediate andinterpret the form this new relationship with the transcendent takes. In their later work they place moreemphasis on addressing existential questions by
demonstrating that individuals experience post-traumatic growth in the domain of spirituality irrespective of beliefs.19
B. Psycho-Spiritual Paradigm Transpersonal psychology provides an alternativeway of understanding the self in transformation.20 StanGrof’s holotropic model emphasises the role of humanpsyche in a similar process of psycho-spiritualtransformation which he calls ‘spiritual emergence’.21
Triggered either by an unconscious readiness or byhighly stressful emotional or physical crises likebereavement, the psyche becomes open to domains ofexperience not usually accessible in day-to-dayliving.22 Grof contends that as the individual psychecontains no boundaries and the contents present as acontinuum of many psychological dimensions and levels,a psycho-spiritual transformation is experienced as aunique and life changing event. When correctlysupported the process enables the integration of newvalues and existential priorities and a greaterinterest in living. When it is ignored or suppressed itcan develop into what Grof has termed a crisis of‘spiritual emergency’. The outcome of this expandedworldview is improved health and personal satisfaction,a wiser connection to people, nature and the cosmos,and openness to transpersonal experiences.23
In terms of bereavement, the individual maytherefore experience both a crisis of loss and beplunged into an intra-psychic crisis of consciousness.In the latter, boundaries to awareness disintegrate andperceptions become disturbingly altered as newawareness floods the psyche and previously unconsciousmaterial rises into consciousness. This parallel crisisprocess has the capacity to alter reality and challenge
beliefs about the world. Heightened emotional andphysical responses cause disassociation, alienation andisolation. In keeping with what is known about managingall kinds of crisis, it is suggested that themanagement of a crisis of consciousness depends uponthe individual’s awareness, acceptance andunderstanding of their transforming levels ofconsciousness and ability to process, understand, makemeaning and integrate new experiences.24
5. Analysis of Autobiographical Material Crises that create intrusive ruminations may bemanaged through intentional acts of self disclosuresuch as writing and talking. What follows is an accountof a fatal car accident written by the author, as theclient Peter. It is accompanied by a brief therapeuticcommentary and application of a Crisis Transformationand Opportunity model. Crisis is conceived of here as an unforeseeablepivotal moment where major elements of the client’sunique experience and possible futures spontaneouslyand non-linearly become available. At its personallychallenging confluence individuals must survive, makemeaning and adjust.
A. Pre-Crisis ‘It had rained earlier in the morning leaving a greasy film of muddiedwater on the road...’Whilst introducing the story, Peter unconsciouslyreveals the cause, time and place of the accident.Crises stories are unique and counsellors will gainunderstanding by learning how the client identifiesmeaning in the details as they unfold.25 Assisting Peterto reconstruct his identity and adjust to the reality25 Attig, How We Grieve.
of his losses relies heavily upon his access to bothproximate and distal socio-cultural support.26 ‘The police arrived at lunchtime...I was feeding the two kids withmonster stuffed sandwiches and glasses of milk.’Peter anticipates his wife’s return. The crisis willshatter his assumptions that the world is a safe andpredictable place.27 However, his pre-episodefunctioning, combined with an ability to makepsychological adjustments, is predictive of coping andgrowth.28
B. Anticipating Crises – Consciousness and Death What happens next reflects Peter’s experientialstyle: ‘I heard the bell...I let them in – joking, because they insisted on makingme sit down to hear their news... real police don’t do that.’Forced to play this role he intuitively disengages fromthe pain that he suspects is about to be unleashed.With a diminishing sense of control he flees thisuncomfortable reality into dark humour. Mounting fearand disbelief focus him inward. His psyche attracted tothe crisis permits his ego to contact non-ordinaryrealms of experience.29
C. Distress and Unconscious Awareness. At a primal level Peter’s survival mechanism isreadying the body for action:
29 Patricia Reis defines Jung’s ‘more useful constructs’as ‘those aspects of the psyche that are most despised,feared, and rejected by the ego-consciousness.’ InPatricia Reis, The Mysteries of Creativity: Self-seeding, Death of theGreat Goddess and Facing Medusa: The Shadow Sister. Through theGoddess: A Woman’s Way of Healing (New York: Continuum,1995).
‘I had an impression that I was falling down a deep lift shaft...Alreadysystems were shutting down inside me.’Peter is ‘falling’ inward but still totally able toengage with reality. Consciously he is not expecting toconfront Death but as barriers to the unconsciousdissolve he intuitively and viscerally anticipates theshock and pain that is to come.
D. Crisis Event Peter is finally confronted with the unthinkable: ‘”There had been an accident...Your wife has been killed.” The brain slows down to a single fuzzy note...I cannot breath. Thepoliceman is still talking. Why the hell is he talking? “...your step-son Ben has been killed.”’There is no mistaking Peter’s indescribable despair andisolation - suffocating under the weight of it. Theunanticipated accidental deaths of wife and childcreate a powerful ‘bereavement overload’.30 Unable toexpress emotion he is typically instrumental in hisresponses.31 After the first reeling blow Peter has noinner reserves available to deal with the nextonslaught.
E. Challenges Presented by Crisis ‘”Your baby son Freddie is in intensive care...”I snatch at what remains of his little body in despair. He is alive but forhow long? “I can’t tell you if he will survive...”These powerless mechanical officials wait not knowing what to do. Theyare waiting for me to decide but I no longer exist...The bit that works needsto be with his baby boy.’The news of his son’s survival rallies him to action.The power of their bond gives him a significant task tofulfil.32 Freddie becomes a transitional or linkingobject to those that are lost. In a metaphor of
positive transformation, Peter is the ‘Hero’ who mustbegin a mytho-poetic or shamanic journey across aperilous landscape to rescue his son and gain thewisdom to weave a coherent future narrative.33
F. Social Support, Culture, and Friendship Peter’s experience of bereavement is sociallyconstructed and his struggle with the immediatecircumstances of loss and intra-psychic changes requiresocially and culturally supportive contexts in which tointeractively explore and socially mediate meaning. Inchoosing to tell the children himself he achieves somedegree of control over its construction: ‘There is a blur, a painful placing together of necessary events; tellingthem, watching them, feeling the shocked incomprehension...’Male survivors look to their friends to be confidantes,for acceptance, understanding, and compassion.34 Peterexpresses his expectations of male friendship inhealing: 35
‘Murray will drive me... He will take care of me. Other friends will join melater...like the last time when I assisted in Freddie’s birth.Now he lies in an adult sized bed with a steel spike stuck into his head. Heis only eight months old!’A predominantly male perspective, in this part of theaccount Peter presents five images of men: the policechorus of faceless officialdom; the friend who embodiesthe epic qualities of a saviour; then, powerfullyjuxtaposed images of father and son, Freddie’s‘miracle’ birth and the brutal and unforgiving image ofpain.
G. Preserving Hope The hard physical evidence of his son’s cruellybroken body cannot be ignored and Peter releases aflood of despair about his present and future needs.
‘I wanted to scream and claw like a wild animal, to rant...but I was aspowerless and still as the small body... I wanted him to live. I wanted himto die. I wanted something more than this...’This is a painful and conflicting moment for Peter thatlargely speaks for itself. Confronted by what heintuitively knows he recoils from any notion of hope.Raw with exhaustion he understands that his son hasallowed him precious moments to integrate thehorrifying reality of his situation and prepare forwhat is to come.
H. Ruminations and Reduced DistressOver the next few hours Peter reflectively watches thepressure in Freddie’s cranium slowly build: ‘Everything was slipping away. All I could do was stand and watch thenumbers flashing higher and slowly higher.’ Poignantly and simply Peter makes himselfvulnerable to his situation. Permitted to hold his son,the contact generates a deep sense of calm in him andhis impotence and rage dissolve into nurturing: ‘We had become one...it suddenly became important to live his life inme...he was giving all of himself to sustain me.’ At the time of writing and in subsequent years,Peter draws strength from this pivotal moment andregards it as a gift.36 The narrative has taken a freshtrajectory. As he memorialises Freddie, Peterpowerfully internalises the object-infant as a deepprojection of himself and in this moment oftransference he explores his physical, psychologicaland spiritual wholeness as a father and as a sonthrough this enduring bond.37 The Biblical precedent ofsacrificial love seems purposefully strong in this partof the narrative.
‘I held him...experiencing things that only I could see and hear andunderstand...immense, an epic poem, a choral symphony, the meaning oflife, God with us, I was at the gateway to Heaven...given the right to leadFreddie back to his Maker and to his mother...’The arrival of the pastor and his friends activates avast spiritual opening. Much of the writing in thissection is mytho-poetical and the mood touches theexistential and transcendent. Here Peter celebrates hisstrength as a man stewarded by men in a spiritual‘survivor mission’.38
J. Automatic Rumination as a Sense of PresenceExperience Broadly speaking, bereavement permits shifts in ourperception of reality such as paranormal experiences,visual or auditory hallucinations and sensing thedeceased’s presence, which often explain and validateand support its successful adaptation.39 40 Similarly,if an individual displays excitement, openness and aneed to share his experiences with others, as Peterdoes through his narrative, he may be experiencing avariant through spiritual emergence.41 In hisnarrative, ‘sense of presence’ experiences are both acatalyst for post-traumatic growth and its outcome:42
39 Julie Parker’s (2005) conceptualisation of continuingbonds as ‘extra ordinary experiences’ of contact withthe dead supports the view that challenges toperception are associated with adaptive outcomes togrief. Julie S. Parker, ‘Extraordinary Experiences ofthe Bereaved and Adaptive Outcomes of Grief Omega: Journalof Death and Dying, 51(2005): 257-283.40 Bonanno, The Other Side of Sadness, 142-4.41 Johnson and Friedman, ‘Enlightened or Delusional?’,505-527.
‘I have a vision. Brigitte appears in the ward with Ben behind her. Sheis...unblemished. Freddie slowly sits up opens his eyes and turns to look ather. Grinning he extends his arms as if to be picked up. She crouches,arms outstretched smiling encouragingly. He looks back at me, his eyeslarge and sparkling, and grasping my hand swings to the floor. He standsfor a moment looking towards his mother and back at me. She calmlywaits...I release my grip...and looking once again at me he leans forward tograb his mother’s outstretched hand. I feel him leave me...They are lookingat me. I am acknowledging them and understand...I start to weep. I turnto check the pressure monitor – it is peaking at 163. I look back...they havegone. My little boy has not moved. I am intensely calm and a little afraid. Iweep for myself...’ A profound shift in perspective, this vision pre-figures a new phase in Peter’s journey. Expandedawareness brings the biographic and transpersonalrealms of experience together. Peter is drawn into abeautiful spiritual dimension which gives the leave-taking profound meaning. The family bond has defeateddeath and a reunion is comfortingly achieved.43 Morethan imaginary, this cathartic representation of thechild is firmly rooted in the father and continues tosustain him as his unknowable journey unfolds.44
K. Acceptance and the Disengagement from Goals The following conditions have contributedpositively to Peter’s transformation and growth:experiential style; understanding and acceptance of theprocess; a positive context for his experience;availability of informed, sympathetic and consistentsocial support; respect for his beliefs; and, finally,his creation of a new narrative: ‘Carrying my son to the mortuary...was a profoundly spiritual andmasculine experience - a father carrying his dead son, flanked bypolicemen and supported by friends, processing through the endlesscorridors of a midnight institution. I felt their power and the need to do this
right...I carried their dreams, their nightmares, their children in myarms...we marched together in triumph...giving up my son in a lastmoment of dignity...We had won…and then there was God.’ Much of this powerful narrative speaks for itself.This is a profoundly male experience and its mood ismartial and solemn. He is at once narrator, father,survivor, Hero – a simple metaphor of humanity.
L. Wisdom In the first few hours of crisis he has experiencedthe disintegration of his assumptive world and isalready testing his new one. Forced to face the deathof his family he has simultaneously died to himself andbeen re-birthed. Offered this new start it is notsurprising, perhaps, that he should puzzle over thelast piece of his existential equation. 6. Afterword Twelve months after the accident Peter stillrecalled the events with great clarity. The narrativeis subjective and reveals material that has beenaccumulated with hindsight over a number of months ofhealing. However, over twelve years later the detailsremain undiminished and Peter continues to develop. Hiscrisis of bereavement may have broken him but it alsomade him. It has provided opportunities that have ledto beneficial growth outcomes. His struggle withcrisis has provided him with a place to grow, anearnest metaphor for his future behaviour, and aframework to understand his place and purpose in theuniverse.
42 Steffen and Coyle, ‘Can “Sense of Presence”Experiences in Bereavement be Conceptualised asSpiritual Phenomena?’, 273-291.1 There are a number of reviews and meta-studiesavailable such as those done by: Justin J. F. O’Rourke,Benjamin A. Tallman and Elizabeth M. Altmaier,‘Measuring Post-Traumatic Changes inSpirituality/Religiosity’, Mental Health, Religion & Culture 11(2008): 719–728; and Annick Shaw, Stephen S. Joseph,and Alex P. Linley, ‘Religion, Spirituality, andPosttraumatic Growth: A Systematic Review’, Mental Health,Religion & Culture, 8(2005):1–11.2 The following article discusses coping with major lifeevents and the role of spirituality and self-transformation: Brian L. Lancaster and Jason T.Palframan, ‘Coping with Major Life Events: The Role ofSpirituality and Self-Transformation’, Mental Health,Religion & Culture, 12 (2009): 257-276.3 Stan Grof and Christina Grof’s The Stormy Search for Self: AGuide to Personal Growth Through Transformational Crises (LosAngeles: J. P. Tarcher, 1990) is their seminal work onmanagement of spiritual crises. 4 A challenging discussion on the differential diagnosisof psychopathological, religious, spiritual, andtranspersonal experiences can be found in Chad Johnsonand Harris Friedman’s ‘Enlightened or Delusional?
Differentiating Religious, Spiritual, and TranspersonalExperiences from Psychopathology’ Journal of HumanisticPsychology 48 (2008): 505-527. 5 Patte Randal and Nick Argyle, ‘‘‘Spiritual Emergency’– a useful explanatory model?” A Literature Review andDiscussion Paper’. Viewed 12 October 2012, <http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/pdf/Patte%20Randal%20and%20Nick%20Argyle%20Spiritual%20Emergency%201.1.06.pdf>.6 Lawrence Calhoun and Richard Tedeschi, ‘Time ofChange? The Spiritual Challenges of Bereavement andLoss’ Omega 53(2006): 105-116.7 Stan Grof’s holotropic or moving toward wholenessframework is usefully explained in the following works:Stanislav Grof, Beyond the Brain: Birth, Death and Transcendence inPsychotherapy (Albany: State University New York Press,1985); Stan Grof, The Cosmic Game: Explorations of the Frontiers ofHuman Consciousness (Albany: State University of New YorkPress, 1998); Stan Grof, Psychology of the Future: Lessons fromModern Consciousness Research (Albany: State University ofNew York Press, 2000).8 The author utilises his ‘Expanded Model of PTG andPsycho-spiritual Transformation’ to assist in ananalysis of the text. A fuller explanation can be foundin his article ‘A Broader Framework for Exploring theInfluence of Spiritual Experience in the Wake ofStressful Life Events: Examining Connections Between
Posttraumatic Growth and Psycho-spiritualTransformation’ Mental Health, Religion and Culture 13 (2010):293-308. 9 Therese A. Rando, Treatment of Complicated Mourning(Champaign, Illinois: Research Press, 1993).10 Robert A. Neimeyer, Lessons of Loss: A Guide to Coping (NewYork: McGraw-Hill, 1998).11 Tom Attig, How we Grieve: Relearning the World (New York:Oxford University Press, 1996).12 George Bonanno, The Other Side of Sadness: What the New Scienceof Bereavement Tells us about Life after Loss (New York: BasicBooks, 2009): 142-4.13 Dennis Klass, Phyllis R. Silverman and Steven L.Nickman, eds., Continuing Bonds: New Understandings of Grief(Washington: Taylor Francis, 1996).14 Edith Steffen and Adrian Coyle, ‘Can “Sense ofPresence” Experiences in Bereavement be Conceptualisedas Spiritual Phenomena?’ Mental Health, Religion and Culture, 13(2010): 273-291.15 Margaret Stroebe and Henk Schut, ‘The Dual ProcessModel of Coping with Bereavement: Rationale andDescription’ Death Studies 23 (1999): 192-224.16 Bonanno, The Other Side of Sadness, 142-4.17 Since coining the term ‘posttraumatic growth’ and thepublication of ‘The Posttraumatic Growth Inventory:
Measuring the Positive Legacy of Trauma’ in the Journal ofTraumatic Stress, 9 (1996): 455-471, Tedeschi and Calhounhave continued to research a broad spectrum of post-traumatic growth phenomena. 18 Annick Shaw, Stephen S. Joseph and Alex P. Linley,‘Religion, Spirituality, and Posttraumatic Growth: ASystematic Review’, Mental Health, Religion & Culture,8(2005):1–11.19 Presently, Calhoun, Tedeschi, Cann, and Hanks’ 2010model of growth in grief offers no further insightsinto the roles of spirituality and religion post-trauma.20 Peter Bray, ‘A Broader Framework for Exploring theInfluence of Spiritual Experience in the Wake ofStressful Life Events: Examining Connections BetweenPosttraumatic Growth and Psycho-SpiritualTransformation’, Mental Health, Religion and Culture, 13 (2010):293-30.21 The term ‘holotropic’ describes ‘moving towardswholeness’ phenomena - a core process in Grof’s work.22 Stan Grof’s book The Stormy Search for Self, written withhis wife Christina, outlines their concerns aboutpsycho-spiritual transformation. His later workPsychology of the Future details his holotropic philosophy.23 Emma Bragdon, Source Book for Helping People with SpiritualEmergency (Los Altos: Lightening Up, 1988); Brant
Cortright, Psychotherapy and Spirit: Theory and Practice inTranspersonal Psychotherapy (Albany: State University of NewYork Press,1997).24 Bray, ‘A Broader Framework for Exploring theInfluence of Spiritual Experience in the Wake ofStressful Life Events’, 293-30.26 Lawrence Calhoun and Richard Tedeschi, eds., Handbookof Posttraumatic Growth: Research and Practice (London: LawrenceErlbaum Associates Publishers, 2006).27 Attig, How we Grieve.28 Grof and Grof (1990): 245, Tedeschi, Park and Calhoun(1998): 226 and Johnson and Friedman’s (2008): 515findings suggest that pre-crisis functioning influencesoutcomes.30 Neimeyer, Lessons of Loss, 14.31 Terry Martin and Ken Doka, Men don’t cry - Women Do: Transcending Gender Stereotypes of Grief (Philadelphia: Brunner/Mazel, 2000). 32 Phil Cousineau, ed., The Hero’s Journey: JosephCampbell on His Life and Work (New York: Harper andRow, 1990).34 Carol Staudacher, Men and Grief (Oakland: New HarbingerPublication, 1991). 35 Lawrence Calhoun and Richard Tedeschi describe theclinician who assists in the PTG process as an expertcompanion’, and in cases of spiritual emergence this
hands-on, facilitative and educative role supports andpaces the individual’s forward momentum through to theend of the process. Handbook of Posttraumatic Growth: Researchand Practice London: Lawrence Erlbaum AssociatesPublishers, 2006): 292-298. 36 Tom Attig maintains that it is by drawing upon thesupport of the inner representation of the deceasedthat an individual enhances his own life through thisinwardly illuminating, transforming and constantlyfresh relationship. 37 Dennis Klass confirms that the conceptualisation ofwhat he calls ‘healthy resolution’ that incorporatesrather than rejects the deceased. He suggests that inconsidering the role of the ‘inner representation’ ofthe deceased we are provided with a theoreticalframework for thinking about the place of the deceasedin the ongoing lives of the living. ‘The InnerRepresentation of the Dead Child in the Psychic andSocial Narratives of Bereaved Parents’ in MeaningReconstruction and the Experience of Loss, ed. Robert Neimeyer(Washington: American Psychological Association,2001):77-94.33 In their discussion on male initiation Robert Mooreand Douglas Gillette suggest that crises can plunge aman into a three stage journey, or quest, beginningwith The Call, then The Belly of the Whale, comparable
to Saint John of the Cross’ ‘Dark Night of the Soul’and finally the Return. There is some similarity hereto what Campbell defines as the three stages of thearchetypal rites of passage or ‘the Hero’s Journey’;‘separation’, ‘initiation’ and ‘return’. In King, Warrior,Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine(San Francisco: Harper, 1990).38 Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery (Basic Books,1992)43 Margaret Bowater suggests that it is not uncommon forsomeone to witness a direct clairvoyant glimpse of thespirit’s transition from this dimension of life to thenext. Margaret Bowater, Dreams and Visions, Language of theSpirit (North Shore City: Tandem, 1997): 120.44 For more about ‘the inner representation of thedeceased’ see Dennis Klass, Phyllis R. Silverman, andSteven L. Nickman eds., Continuing Bonds: New Understandings ofGrief (Washington: Taylor & Francis, 1996).
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Peter Bray is an Associate Professor in The Faculty ofHumanities, Arts and Trades at the Eastern Institute ofTechnology in Hawke’s Bay, NZ. He has been widelypublished in scholarly peer-reviewed journals and isthe author of Hamlet's Crisis of Consciousness: The DeeperDimensions of Adolescent Loss (2008). He has also co-editedtwo collections of work which reflect his developinginterest in trauma work, Voicing Trauma and Truth: Narratives ofDisruption and Transformation (2013), and ‘The Strangled Cry’: TheCommunication and Experience of Trauma. Currently, hisresearch and writing in counselling and psychology
concern themselves with exploring the position ofindividuals who are challenged by crises, and the rolesthat spiritual dimensions of experience play in theirpost-traumatic growth.
