Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Teaching Council in Sri Lanka: A Post Disaster, Culturally Sensitive and Spiritual Model of Group Process

  • Report
  • Published:
Journal of Religion and Health Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In response to the December 26, 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia, a method of treating trauma with group therapy, called Council, was introduced to Sri Lankan para-professionals working for Sarvodaya, a local non-governmental organization, by American psychotherapists associated with Heart Circle Sangha, a Zen Buddhist temple in New Jersey. Working together, Americans and Sri Lankans incorporated meditation, mindfulness and culturally congruent spiritual ritual that made the group process acceptable and healing to the survivors who were Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu and Christian.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Argenti-Pillen, A. (2003). Masking terror: How women contain violence in Southern Sri Lanka. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hesse, E., Main, M., Abrams, K. Y., & Rifkin, A. (2003). Unresolved states regarding loss or abuse can have “second generation” effects: Disorganization, role inversion, and frightening ideation in the offspring of traumatized, non-maltreating parents. In M. F. Solomon & D. J. Siegel (Eds.), Healing trauma: Attachment, mind, body, and brain (pp. 57–106). New York and London: Norton & Co.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kakar, S. (1985). Psychoanalysis and non-western cultures. International Review of Psycho-Analysis, 12, 441–448.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levine, P. (1997). Waking the tiger. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • McFarlane, A. C., & Van der Kolk, B. A. (1996). Trauma and its challenge to society. In B. A. van der Kolk, A. C. McFarlane, & L. Weisaeth (Eds.), Traumatic stress: The effects of overwhelming experience on mind, body and society (pp. 24–46). New York and London: The Guilford Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schore, A. N. (2003). Early relational trauma, disorganized attachment, and the development of a predisposition to violence. In M. F. Solomon & D. J. Siegel (Eds.), Healing trauma: Attachment, mind, body, and brain. New York, NY: Norton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zimmerman, J., & Coyle, V. (1996). The way of council. Putney, VT: Bramble Books.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Heart Circle Sangha, 451 Hillcrest Road, Ridgewood, NJ, 07450, USA

    Joan Hogetsu Hoeberichts

Authors
  1. Joan Hogetsu Hoeberichts
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Joan Hogetsu Hoeberichts.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Hoeberichts, J.H. Teaching Council in Sri Lanka: A Post Disaster, Culturally Sensitive and Spiritual Model of Group Process. J Relig Health 51, 390–401 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-010-9358-3

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-010-9358-3

Keywords

Search

Navigation