White Dove Fellowship

October 9, 2018
Coroner’s Chaplains Meeting
VICARIOUS TRAUMA IN MINISTRY

· VICARIOUS TRAUMA, also known as secondary trauma, is the direct exposure to a traumatic event through the personal narrative of a trauma victim.

· Caring for people in traumatic experiences (crisis counseling, death notifications, crime victims, suicide discovery, rape and molestation survivors, etc.) creates cumulative unsettling soul damage. The seen images and the stories heard are experienced and embedded as your own memories.

GATEKEEPER

· A “GATEKEEPER” controls access to a city through the gates.

Proverbs 25:28 “Whoever has no self-control is like a city with broken down walls.”

· Ministers and other helping professionals are at risk of transferred traumatization through their compassionate open and unguarded hearts. The honorable truth of being a tenderhearted person exposes you unconsciously to vicarious trauma.

Psalm 101:3 “I will set no wicked thing before my eyes.”

OCCUPATIONAL HAZARDS

· If you’re a pastor, you probably believe you’re safe in a great church, but you are actually in an unrelenting spiritual and emotional war zone as a target for demonic attack.

· In a study of 1,000 ministers the top five discouraging issues expressed were: conflict, betrayal, false accusation hurt, emotional exhaustion, and personal isolation.

· Vicarious trauma is pernicious, silent and subtly devastating. It depletes your energy, disturbs your sleep, numbs your heart, fragments your thoughts, and erodes your soul.

· Vicarious ministry trauma can tempt you to secretly desire to get away from church people and check out of ministry. You may even feel entitled, thinking to yourself, “I sacrifice so much in caring for hurting people that “________________”.

· Day after day, internalizing the suffering of others leads to “compassion fatigue”, “ministry burnout”, and possible moral failure. (Alcohol, medications, pornography, isolation, etc.)

2 Corinthians 11:3 “But I fear, lest somehow, just as the serpent deceived Eve by his subtlety, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.”

· Compassionately listening to hurting people is a major component of our pastoral ministries. Hearing these tragic stories can easily overwhelm us.

· Our listening brains mentally personalize. Our hearts emotionalize the mental pictures;
the feelings of the trauma victims transfer. (Faith and fear both come in through the ear)

Proverbs 4:23 “Guard your heart with all diligence for out of your heart flow all the issues of life.”

· We tend to take ministry so seriously that we forget to arm ourselves or take up our shield of faith!

· The enemy will always attack your “greatest strength” with subtle seduction.

2 Corinthians 2:11 “In order for Satan to not outwit us, we should not be ignorant of his schemes and devices.”

· Guard your heart with the Shield of Faith. Always be aware of your seducing adversary. Always vigilant, but never paranoid!

MORE THAN A BLOOD PUMP

· The human heart begins in embryonic development before the brain develops in the womb. The first heartbeat begins after only sixteen days.

· The heart contains specialized cells that create and release specialized neurotransmitters. Traditionally, these communicators to the body were believed to be produced only in the brain.

· Researchers have confirmed what God has taught in His Word, that the heart has its own brain. This “heart brain” communicates with the “head brain” through the nervous system and hormonal system.

· The heart has a specialized nervous system of its own called the “Purkinje System”. In order for your heart to beat continuously, it must be stimulated by its internal electrical system. (Per-kin-yay)

· Your heart produces an electrical field that is sixty times stronger than the electrical field produced by your brain.

· The magnetic field of your heart is five thousand times stronger than the magnetic field generated by your brain.

· The normal frequency range of your heart’s electrical field is 250 Hertz. (Hz. Unit of electrical current change). The frequency of the brain is 0 to 100 Hertz.

· Input from the heart to the brain either inhibits or facilitates activity in your brain.

LIFE IS IN THE BLOOD

Proverbs 17:22 “A joyful heart is like a medicine, but a broken heart dries the life of the bones.”

· Like the brain, your heart has the capability to act independently from your brain to learn, remember, and produce the “feelings of the heart”.

· Your heart beliefs have a profound effect on influencing your perceptions, emotions, imaginations, and decisions.

· The mind accepts reasonable and logical ideas; but these ideas can be exchanged easily with new information.

· The emotionalized thoughts of the heart create a protective belief system that defies rational and spiritual truth. Only by conviction, repentance, and meditation can strongholds be torn down.

Psalm 51:10 “Create a clean heart in me, O God, and renew a right attitude in me.”

· The heart is the primary dynamic in which a person seeks and perceives God. (Your personhood)

Jeremiah 29:13 “You shall seek Me, and find Me, when you shall search Me with all your heart.”

Psalm 119:10 “With all my heart have I sought You: O let me not wander from Your commandments.”

Romans 10:9-10 “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with mouth confession is made.”

MONITOR YOUR MOUTH

· No one can control the words of his mouth with his mind! It is always the “core beliefs of the heart issue”. (Matthew 12:35)

· In order to maintain mental, physical, and spiritual “well being”, we must go beyond the “battle for the mind” and engage in the “ battle for the heart”.
(Romans 8:7 “nor indeed can it be”)

Ecclesiastes 10:2 “A wise man’s heart directs him to do right things, but a fool’s heart seduces him to do wrong.”

· When stressful thoughts go from your mind to the heart and become emotionalized they will become an integral part of your belief system. (Process of meditation)

Psalm 19:14 “Lord, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer.”

· It is scripturally true that as a person “thinks in his heart, so he is”. (Proverbs 23:7)

PURPOSE TO GUARD YOUR HEART

· There is a Biblical warning to guard our hearts; our words flow out of our hearts. Therefore, life and death influences not only ourselves, but also everyone around us.

· Jesus applied this principle to heart lust; “Whosoever looks upon a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart.” (Matthew 5:28)

· Notice that Jesus did not say the lustful man commits adultery in his heart, but rather that man commits adultery “with her”. His heart has a destructive transfer effect on her heart as well as on his own.

· Often women and girls are plagued by immoral thoughts and are disturbed as to why this happened. It doesn’t occur to them that the source is a heart transference from another person.

· We can often sense someone standing behind us, staring at us, or about to approach by the thoughts of their hearts transmitting to our hearts.

· The frequency and magnetic field of a person’s heart affects another’s heart positively or negatively. (Anger, foolishness, wisdom, countenance)

Proverbs 23:7 “Eat and drink!” he says to you, but his heart is not with you.”

CLOSE PROXIMITY TRANSFERENCE

Proverbs 13:20 “He who walks with wise men will become wise, but a companion of fools will suffer destruction.”

Proverbs 22:24-25 “Make no friendship with an angry man, and do not go with a furious man, lest you learn his ways, and destroy your soul.”

· “Trans-neuma-migration” is the transferring of the dominant spirit of whomever we willingly submit ourselves to. (STD)

1 Timothy 5:22 “Do not lay hands on anyone quickly, nor share in other people’s sins; keep yourself pure.”

· The beliefs of the heart can lead to health or destruction: “for out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, false witnesses, blasphemies: these things defile a man.” (Matthew 15:19-20)

· Your mind creates reasons, ideas, and concepts, but thinks thoughts sent from your emotionalized heart. This is the “belching up” process of both fruitful and unfruitful meditation.

2 Corinthians 10:4-5 “For the weapons of our warfare are not natural, but mighty for the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing into captivity every thought into the obedience of Christ.”

· Evil thoughts of the heart produce the corruptions of sicknesses, diseases, and premature deaths stemming from unguarded destructive stresses. (Psychosomatic response)

· Vicarious trauma begins to alter our beliefs, perspectives, and coping mechanisms. Repeated exposure to clenched jaws, pained faces, imagined scenes, and distorted accounts become collective and residual over time.

IF YOU CAN NAME IT, YOU CAN TAME IT

· “Compassion fatigue” and “burnout” are related concepts that share similarities with vicarious trauma. Over time, ministry experiences tend to produce collateral damage to a minister in becoming exposed to one or more of these states at the same time.

· “Compassion fatigue” is the emotional and physical fatigue that results from a minister sincerely feeling compassion for others, while feeling powerlessness, coupled with not taking enough time away to care for self.

· “Burnout” does not involve traumatic events. It is more often a toxic work environment with no adequate personal relief from tedious tasks and schedules.

SOME MINISTERS ARE AT GREATER RISK

· Ministers are more at risk of experiencing vicarious trauma in their ministering with child sex abuse victims, rape victims, spousal abuse victims, and sex trafficking victims.

· Vicarious trauma can have a significant impact on a minister’s mental health. Feelings of anxiety, anger, and sadness are often felt while never relating these emotions as having been transferred over by the trauma victims’ stories.

· Over time and with multiple counseling sessions, full PTSD may overcome ministers first experiencing vicarious trauma unaware.

· Typical symptoms are spontaneous intrusive thoughts, sudden emotions, unwelcome upsetting memories, and/or heightened arousal/reactivity to anyone and/or by anything.

· Trauma is the response to any event that shatters your security, coping mechanisms, and/or hopeful beliefs of your perceived safe world. Now life is no longer a place of refuge.

Jeremiah 29:11 “I know the thoughts that I have toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

· Trauma is more than just a “temporary state of crisis”. It is a normal brain reaction to abnormal events that overwhelm a person’s ability to cope and adapt-all that is felt is powerlessness! (Punch line) It is all about anticipation and expectation.

· The word “trauma” comes from the Greek word meaning “wound”. It is characterized by the typical phrase, “I just can’t get over it.”

· What the person before saw as a “safe and routine existence”, now believes it no longer exists nor will it ever again.”

TRAUMA IS ALL ABOUT THE LOSS

· Trauma was birthed into the world with Adam and Eve in the Garden. Their act of disobedience led to banishment and painful consequences of loss. (Trauma is all about the loss!)

· The event becomes the focal point; the “recurring damage” is the loss that cannot be regained.

· As is usual, when trauma touches an individual, it “ripple-effects” upon family members, as it was with Adam and Eve.

· Job, is another Biblical example. He lost his family, health, and livestock suddenly and violently.

· King David is usually remembered as a hero and not as a victim, but he was a trauma survivor. The Book of Psalms records his sudden vacillations in both his spiritual and emotional life.

· David’s life was a battlefield career, killing thousands, while witnessing uncountable human slaughter.

· He experienced anxiety, deep sorrow, emotional numbing, depression, and detachment.

· Again the family ripple effect continued; her half-brother, Amnon, raped David’s daughter Tamar; later Amnon was killed by his brother Absalom, who died violently.

· David’s losses were unbelievably extensive, but we know through this entire trauma, David chose to put his trust in God.

Psalm 11:1; 22; 4-5 “In the Lord I take refuge. In you, Lord, our fathers put heir trust; they trusted and you delivered them. They cried to you and were saved; in you they trusted and were not disappointed.”

· In Judges 19, gang rape is revealed; Jonah experiences a shipwreck and is eventually swallowed up (Jonah 1; 15-17); Paul’s public beatings, imprisonments and shipwrecks in (2 Corinthians 11:23-28); Jesus’ torture and crucifixion (Luke 23:26-49).

Mark 14:33-34 AMP “And Jesus took with Him Peter, James, and John, and began to become struck with terror, amazement, deeply troubled, and depressed. He said to them, My soul is exceedingly sad, overwhelmed with grief so that it almost kills Me! Remain here, keep awake and be watching.”

· Jesus was hoping for His disciples’ support during His dreaded anticipation. He became deeply depressed, possibly in terror to the point of the stress causing blood to seep through the pores of His skin.

· Trauma continued throughout human history from the Middle Ages to the Civil War, trauma was common. Shakespeare wrote about it in his play, Henry the V.

· Trauma has been called “tunnel disease”, “nostalgia”, “soldier’s heart”, “nervous exhaustion”, and “De Costa’s Syndrome”.

· During World War One, trauma became known as “shell shocked”. With the Vietnam War, trauma came to the public forefront as “post traumatic stress disorder’ or simply PTSD. It has been often referred to as “after shock”. These are all new names for an old human dilemma.

· Individual and family traumas are most often unknown, overlooked, and certainly quickly forgotten by most people. The media instantly features fires, earthquakes, and hurricanes, but soon reports vanish, while those traumatized suffer on for lifetimes.

· Television exposure of tragic events such as the World Trade Center 1993, Oklahoma City 1995, Olympics 1996, Columbine, and other horrific traumas in the world have created a new type of trauma. This mass TV witnessing causes “secondary trauma” now called “CNN STRESS”.

· Traumatic events such as natural and technological disasters, accidents, violent crime, abuse, or war whether personally experienced or witnessed by proximity on media are widespread in scope. It is reported that over 75% of our population has already been exposed to events meeting the criteria of trauma symptoms.

· If there is any good report, only about 25% become and remain chronically traumatized.

· Every trauma case is uniquely different. Effects depend on each person’s personality, spiritual beliefs, cultural experiences, and the type of traumatic event (man-made or natural disaster).

· Not everyone suffering trauma or secondary trauma will develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. There are specific criteria:

- Experiencing a traumatic event with re-experiencing the same event in consistent flashbacks, dreams, intrusive memories, and such.

-The traumatized person exhibits a numbing of responsiveness and tends to avoid situations, persons, places, and stimuli that will spark a memory.

-The person seems to remain in a constant state of heightened arousal or hyper-vigilance.

-The person exhibits these types of symptoms for more than 30 days. Symptoms lasting from 2 days to less than 30 days are diagnosed as acute stress disorder.

· In my opinion, most functioning ministers exposed to traumatic stories are unaware of their secondary trauma. They accept their thoughts, emotions, imaginations, and perspectives as just how life and the ministry are.

· A minister’s emotional wounding usually is not so obvious to him. Whether experiencing a personal, family, ministerial, financial, or a spiritual crisis in some degree; a minister’s psyche can be so assaulted that his personal beliefs about self, ministry, calling, security, life, and God can become distorted.

Proverbs 18:14 “The spirit of a man will sustain him in physical sickness, but who can bear a wounded heart?”

· Most of us will “bounce back”, but still feel “de-realization” (“Is this really happening to me?) And/or “de-personalization” (“I don’t know who or what I am or really believe anymore!)

Proverbs 14:10 “Each heart knows its own feelings; and no one else can really know how sad or happy you really are.”

· In essence, it is virtually impossible to describe another person’s trauma! Each of us knows when our peace, hope, security and identity is challenged, but a called minister’s sense of responsibility pushes on forward anyway.

· Most of those that we will counsel won’t be able to express in natural words what they are experiencing in their lives. Accepting this as a “physical brain issue” should relieve the counselee and the counselor of unnecessary frustration.

· Trauma happens in the brain, then affects the way information is processed, how the event is interpreted, and how the experience is labeled, and how and where it is stored in the memory.

· Traumatized persons often cycle into altered states of thinking and feeling called “dissociative states” that is totally involuntary and spontaneous.

· The traumatized brain distorts time (shrinking or expanding) creating “negative hallucinations” (not seeing or hearing what is happening right in front of them). The only benefit might be that it helps the person to cope in the midst of mayhem.

· As helping ministers, we should consider the physiological (mind/body) to understand better, “Why is this person responding like this?”

Psalm 139:23-24 “Search me, O God and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxious thoughts; and see if any wickedness abides in me, And lead me in Your way everlasting.”

· PHYSIOLOGICAL EFFECTS: The physical brain is a creation of God Himself! It is unique in design, purposeful in creation, and wonderfully made. Each individual is different in personality and perspective. (Psalm 139:14)

· The thinking patterns of the left and right side are unique in functioning:

· The left side is analytical, linear, explicit, sequential, verbal, rational, and goal oriented. It holds beliefs, values, and expectations. This hemisphere controls language and reading skills. The left side gathers information and processes it logically in a step-by-step fashion.

· Some individuals approach the issues of life in a left-sided form, while others respond to life dominantly right-sided.

· The right side is spontaneous, intuitive, emotional, nonverbal, visual, creative, and spatial. (picture album without captions). Memories of events are stored as visual pictures.

· The right side of the brain is where the PTSD effects come from. These graphic pictures are imbedded with emotionalized energy. This is why discussing and talking it over cannot resolve the stress, because it cannot remove the powerful images. Negative faith is manifested in the brain as a physical protein substance.

· TRAUMA FREEZES THINKING: Usually, the body, emotions, and thoughts are connected, but trauma separates the hemispheres. Trauma causes the cognitive left to disconnect from the emotional right. (Corpus callosum affects communication of the lobes)

· Normally, the left and right “pull together” to keep one side from becoming in total control.

· In trauma, vivid graphic visions of the event happen without any connected emotion. Intense emotions are felt without any actual memories. (Don’t know why I feel like this?)

· Trauma presents as “disassociation” – a separation of the elements of the traumatic experience and the emotional impact of the actual event.

· “I can’t remember what I want to remember, but I can’t forget what I want to erase from my mind.”- “It’s like a slice was taken out my brain and there is a hole in my memory!”

· Trauma has many diverse effects on a person. It shatters beliefs and assumptions about life, challenges beliefs about abilities to cope in life, and destroys the hope that the future is secure to enter.

· Trauma leads to silence; “I just don’t have words to describe how I feel!”

· Trauma leads to isolation; “No one seems to know or understand the experience I had!”

· Trauma leads to hopelessness; “There is no way to stop how I feel or the memories of what happened to me!”

Job 19:7 “If I cry out concerning this wrong, I am not heard. If I cry aloud, there is no justice!”

· Trauma affects how we see personal self-identity; our worth and capabilities. We may have seen ourselves as rational, logical, and spiritually in control. Trauma changes all that instantly!

· Thoughts, images, dreams, night terrors, or flashbacks become uncontrollably resident in the person’s life. It’s like time stopped at that “traumatic moment” and locked itself into a constant memory snapshot.

· Some ministers are more susceptible to vicarious trauma than others. We assume that because we are strong called Christian leaders. We should be immune to transferred trauma, but we are all susceptible to transference and always at risk.

1 Peter 5:8-9 “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world.”

· Your ability to handle life’s ordinary stresses and your personally developed coping skills can help, but guard your heart with all diligence, nevertheless, for trauma can overwhelm anyone.

· What does make a difference is the intensity and degree of stress. If you find yourself overcome, it is not because of a defect in you. Your reaction is the normal response to a completely abnormal event.

· Your character and personality don’t impact experiencing the trauma, but trauma does impact your character and personality. Those who have a strong abiding faith in Christ and a manifested understanding of the Scriptures in real life have more resources in coping.

· In reality, everyone can come to a point of becoming overcome by trauma.

· We want answers. We need answers. We expect answers. We plead for answers. But often the Spirit is silent. This is when our strong faith undergoes a “crisis in Christ”.

· Learn to love the adventure of “mystery” rather than become frustrated with unanswered questions to God. If anything is understandable, it is not prophetic. Prophecy edifies always, but reasonable logic frustrates, disappoints, and discourages.

2 Corinthians 2:14 “Now thanks be to God for Jesus Christ who always causes us to triumph.”

· I have tried to alert you to the fact that trauma and its power exists and is basic to our ministries. I want us to be aware that trauma is probably closer than we want to believe.

· There is yet another principle to trauma. The majority of trauma victims eventually benefit from their terrible experiences. There comes a change in values, greater appreciation for life, a deepening of spiritual beliefs, a greater sense of coping, and an appreciation for their relationships.

Psalm 119:71 “It was good for me to be afflicted, that I learned Your statutes.”

Hebrews 5:8 “Even though Jesus was the Son of God, He learned obedience by the things He suffered.”

Romans 8:28 “And we know that all things work together for the good to those who love God and are the called according to His purpose.”

· The most important element in recovering is to remain in relationship with Jesus and His other called people.

SIMPLE STEPS FOR SOUL HEALTH

· Be aware of your exposure to vicarious trauma: You probably don’t realize how much tragedy, suffering, crisis, and emotional upheaval you are unconsciously absorbing.

· Maintain healthy boundaries: Believe that you have limits to how much compassionate care and spiritual responsibility you can safely give out. Even Jesus respected His limits.

· Reach out for the empathy you need: Most ministers deny and suffer silently in denial neglecting their need for empathy. The health principle is balancing your “outflows” and “inflows”.

· Taking it to Jesus before and after ministry is absolutely necessary! “We empathize with others because God first empathizes with us in Christ.” (1 John 4:19 – Hebrews 4: 15 – 2 Corinthians 5:20)

· Develop an enjoyable life:

· Identity

· Intimacy

· Security

· Recreation

· Adventure

Psalm 63:6 “If I’m sleepless at midnight, I spend hours in grateful reflection.”

Proverbs 3:24-25 “When you lie down, you will not be afraid; when you lie down, your sleep will be sweet. Have no fear of sudden disaster.”