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Two Biblical Motifs of Divine Violence as Resources for Meaning-Making in Engaging Self-Blame and Rage after Traumatization

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Abstract

This theoretical essay addresses issues related to employing spiritually integrated therapeutic dialogue with trauma survivors for whom the Bible is a significant source of meaning-making. The discussion focuses on two common biblical motifs that involve violent depictions of God: one that construes the suffering of God’s people as divine punishment and one that imagines divine violence as a consequence enacted upon those who violate God’s people. It is argued that these motifs can function as symbolic representations with a capacity to facilitate interpretation of traumatic experience in an adaptive manner. Psychological insights into the effects of trauma, and recovery from those effects, reveal an adaptive functionality for biblical motifs that depict the subject’s suffering as divine punishment and that imagine divine violence being carried out upon those who violate the subject. Understanding that functionality, in turn, offers a resource for engaging in spiritually integrated therapeutic dialogue with trauma survivors.

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Notes

  1. For an excellent proposal outlining parameters for spiritually integrated psychotherapy, see Pargament (2007, pp. 17–23).

  2. For instance, the Catholic perspective on the importance of the social sciences for biblical interpretation has been made clear (Fitzmyer 1995, pp. 82–92).

  3. Accessible discussions include Carr (2014), O’Connor (2002, 2011), and Stulman and Kim (2010). Slightly more technical discussions include Boase (2014), Boase and Frechette (2016), Frechette (2014, 2015), Garber (2015), and Stulman (1998).

  4. For a more detailed discussion of how the motif of suffering as divine punishment functions in the overall symbolic program of the book of Jeremiah, see Frechette (2015, pp. 29–33).

  5. For discussion of this text as a trauma narrative, see Frechette (2014, pp. 81–82).

  6. The importance of giving physical expression to the release of the rage that results from trauma is explored by Amanda Curtin in her forthcoming book, Childhood Reparenting and Grief Groups: For Adults Who Want to Heal from Childhood Experiences That Are Still Affecting Them. Curtin is a therapist who has practiced in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for 30 years, specializing in working with groups of adults who are processing childhood trauma.

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Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Paul Kline, Associate Professor at the Boston College School of Social Work, for suggesting specific populations that might benefit from the present proposal.

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Correspondence to Christopher G. Frechette.

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A prior version of this article was presented as a paper on October 11, 2015, at the Psychology and the Other Conference, Cambridge, MA.

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Frechette, C.G. Two Biblical Motifs of Divine Violence as Resources for Meaning-Making in Engaging Self-Blame and Rage after Traumatization. Pastoral Psychol 66, 239–249 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-016-0745-x

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