Story Telling and Managing Trauma: Health and Spirituality at Work

This article presents a narrative or story-telling approach to managing trauma. The emphasis is on helping religious and spiritual caregivers, as first responders, to manage the impact of trauma on victims as well as on their own lives as caregivers. Religious and spiritual caregivers come from a wide range of traditions, including the Judeo-Christian and Muslim faiths and self-help frameworks that draw on creation spirituality. The aims of this presentation are (1) to define trauma, (2) to review the literature supporting evidenced-based trauma intervention and its importance to narrative intervention, (3) to examine the impact that trauma has on first responders, and (4) to present a narrative or story-telling model of managing the impact that trauma has on the lives of those suffering from traumatic events as well as the impact of trauma on the lives of religious and spiritual caregivers.