Pastoral/Spiritual Care in Times of Distress: A Turn to Embodiment

The landscape of politics in the U.S. and around the globe is fraught with anxiety, distress, and suffering. How might practical theology be done in these politically fraught times? In particular, what role can pastoral/spiritual care play in dealing with the resulting violence and political trauma? Theory and praxis around embodiment offers an important, and often under considered, method to address these highly-activating times. As Bessel Van der Kolk and other trauma theorists remind us, our bodies literally “keep the score” of the pains and traumas in our lives. Bodies are always communicating, even without conscious awareness. Every person is a collection of “body narratives” that have been internalized over the course of the lifespan (Ogden, Levine). Often these body narratives are unacknowledged because the body doesn’t speak in words, instead communicating in the language of visceral sensations, posture, tightening or relaxing, changes in temperature, gestures, facial expression, changes in autonomic arousal, heartbeat, and breath. These body narratives carry with them embodied theologies. Pastoral theologian Carrie Doehring suggests that meaning-making on an intellectual level does not dispel embedded theologies associated with emotions like fear, shame and guilt and their embodied expressions (Doehring 2015). 

Embodiment research also emphasizes that people were not created to be in situations of prolonged stress. Prolonged stress can keep people mired in responses of fight, flight or freeze, causing emotional, spiritual and physical distress and dis-ease. For those in the throes of such trauma responses, “the body becomes an alien force. They perceive it as unknown, unpredictable, unreliable, even the enemy” (Emerson and Hopper). Scholars like Vander Kolk have described this as the body’s alarm systems being “stuck” in the “on” position. Embodied trauma responses can have many manifestations in relational contexts, including (but not limited to) heightened sense of arousal and vigilance, abruptness, defensiveness, emotional disconnection and disengagement, and even complete shutdown (Jackson). We now know it is possible to intervene in these fight/flight/freeze responses, to use embodied techniques to “turn down” the alarm systems of the body. Bringing embodiment to the center of the emotional and spiritual life serves as one way to engage with these body narratives, including the presence of trauma responses.

Feminist, womanist and intercultural scholars of pastoral care have emphasized the importance of attention to embodiment in healing, notably in the healing from trauma (Doehring, Sheppard, McCormick). While therapeutic modalities that center the body (particularly those that that fall under the umbrella of body psychotherapy, i.e., somatic experiencing, EMDR, and sensorimotor psychotherapy) are gaining traction in the realm of psychology, approaches that integrate the body are currently undertheorized and underutilized in the field of pastoral/spiritual care and have yet to be fully integrated into practices of care. I argue that what is needed is not simply the integration of the body in pastoral care, but a move to place it at the center. This move will provide a crucial pathway for the physical, emotional and spiritual healing of people and communities.

Sociologists of religion such as Meredith McGuire highlight that all of the religious/spiritual practices in which we engage only happen in and through a body. Building on this, scholars of pastoral care note that “spiritual integration at an embodied, emotional level comes about through spiritual practices that foster compassion, particularly self compassion” (Doehring 2015). Practices of “embodied compassion” toward the self and others elicit pro-social responses in the face of suffering, while also fostering positive emotions such as gratitude and love, making people more resilient. These practices create new neural pathways that over time can begin to transform the ways bodies respond to stressful situations. As such, individuals and communities need pastoral/spiritual care that centers embodiment and offers individual and communal practices of embodied compassion. These practices will aid people in remaining grounded in situations that are chronically activating, such as prolonged anxiety and stress.

What are the essential components of a move toward embodiment in pastoral and spiritual care? Theologically, this move recognizes the historic tension around the body within Christianity, helpfully articulated by Manuel Vasquez: on one hand, the body is problematic and often denigrated and renounced as the source of sin, yet it is also an essential aspect of the doctrine, practice, and site of promised redemption. Centering embodiment proclaims the body as “good,” rooting itself in the central belief in Christianity of a God who became a body. In terms of praxis, this move involves a recognition that bodies hold a story. From there, it seeks to intentionally create space for the body to tell that story. Trauma-sensitive methods that engage with embodiment—both from the psychological and religious/spiritual traditions—become important resources. From the psychological realm, therapeutic modalities from body psychotherapy (such as SE and IRF) facilitate “present moment body awareness”—or the felt sense—inquiring how posture, gestures and the sensations, images, and thoughts arising from the various “parts” of ourselves communicate meaning to/with us. Practices that center embodiment from spiritual and religious traditions such as mindfulness, singing, chanting, drumming, yoga and various forms of meditation, prayer and ritual facilitate an appreciation for and engagement with embodied existence. They create opportunities for direct communication from the deepest self, the place where the Divine resides. Doehring also suggests that practices of theological reflexivity—integrative work undertaken within communities of support and accountability—are an important resource that seeks to bring compassionate understanding to the ways that embodied theologies of fear, guilt, shame and despair have been internalized through interacting social systems of oppression. Theological reflexivity also attends to habitual ways of coping under stress, seeking to create practices of care that connect one with goodness. Pastoral/spiritual care that centers embodiment is an ongoing dance between these resources, drawing on them to choreograph a lived religion that employs a variety of contextually-sensitive embodied practices that foster openness to what the Divine might be communicating in and through ingrained body narratives, postures, default motions/sensations and intentional spiritual practices.