Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
Dissertation Research Project
Have you ever had a spiritual, energetic, or awakening experience, and then shifted into memories or feelings from past trauma? Or, inversely, have you ever been in the process of working through a past trauma and then a spiritual experience arose? If so, I'd like to hear about your experiences.
I'm writing my doctoral dissertation on the interface between spiritual experiences and post traumatic stress disorder. I believe that this is an area that is relatively common, but has been under documented in the field of psychology. I am hoping to shed some light on this area.
If you choose to be interviewed, your privacy will be completely protected. Only your initials and/or pseudonyms will be used, unless you want your real name to be used.
An overview of the topic and interview process is included below.
Thanks for your time!Some common symptoms for PTSD and Spiritual Emergence:
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
Spiritual Emergence
Documentation of the interface between posttraumatic stress disorder and spiritual emergence is extremely rare. What literature does exist predominantly focuses on the relationship between posttraumatic stress disorder and spiritual or religious beliefs, rather than on the relationship between posttraumatic stress disorder and the spiritual or religious experience. Further, almost no literature exists on the influence that spiritual experiences might have on posttraumatic stress disorder. This study will examine the relationship between the symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder and the symptoms of a spiritual emergence. More specifically, it looks for a possible interplay between the two. The goal is to discover how the symptoms of one condition might affect the symptoms of the other.
I am including in my definition of Spiritual Emergence that of Grof and Grof (1986):
Episodes of unusual experiences that involve changes in consciousness and in perceptual, emotional, cognitive and psychosomatic functioning, in which there is a significant transpersonal emphasis in the process, …extra-sensory perception, intense energetic states (kundalini awakening), states of mystical union, identification with cosmic consciousness, etc.
Regarding spiritual and religious affiliation, if a participant uses a label other than Spiritual Emergence to define his or her spiritual experiences (e.g., “revelation,” “God’s grace,” “the descent of the Holy Spirit,” etc.), the participant will be included in this study, as long as these experiences share the majority of the symptoms of those given for the definition of Spiritual Emergence.
The following is the central question for the interview: “Describe a time, or times, when you have experienced a relationship between your symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder and spiritual emergence.” The interview process consists of two interviews, each lasting between one and a half and two hours long. The participants will have the opportunity to read the analysis and transcript of each interview, and give feedback about what they have read. The feedback from the participants will help assure that how I understand what the participants have expressed is in alignment with what the participants feel they really said.
The privacy and anonymity of the participants will be protected by use of initials and/or pseudonyms. Should a participant choose to be anonymous, I will be the only person who knows his or her real identity. The committee chair, committee member, and external reader for the dissertation will not have this information.
Audrey Lehmann, Licensed Marriage Family Therapist
AudreyLehmannMFT@gmail.com
5 comments:
I wish you good luck with your study and hope to read your research findings of your data.
Hi, Audrey
I am very, very interested in your study and the stories which will surface as a result of your creation of this blog. It might very well be a Godsend for me, after three years of a very lonely journey, with no one who could understand or guide me in what I have been going through.
In my attempt to understand my own experience, I have used spiritual teachings, and then enrolled in a Master's Program in Counseling Psychology to see where western science is with PTSD, and then prayed I would find trauma specialists who would talk with me, and who might have the spiritual background to help me make sense of my own experience. God bless you for this! It is timely.
Shannon
I have been to a psychotherapist before. And although it helped to to get my thoughts in order (somewhat), to get that internal dialogue out, I could not get the therapist to "believe" outside the box. Therapy got stuck somewhere between the sexual trauma and the mental effect.
I can relate to what you wrote. I have been very challenged in trying to describe my metaphysical/spiritual experience -- even to Audrey when she called me. It feel flat on its face. I could not find a way to put it into words. Then when I went back and read Dr. Grof's description, it fit what I had tried to describe.
I am hesitant to talk with a psychotherapist, unless I can confirm first that they have some understanding of this. I have seen one or two Ph.D.'s on the internet who are talking on this level . . . they just aren't in my city.
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