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. What role can pastoral/spiritual care play in dealing with the resulting violence and political trauma? An important method to address these highly-activating times is a turn to embodiment. 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. In pastoral/spiritual care, feminist, womanist and intercultural scholars of pastoral care have emphasized the importance of attention to embodiment in healing, notably in the healing from trauma. Yet embodied praxis requires more attention to be integrated in the field. This paper explores the components of a body-centered approach to pastoral/spiritual care, including attention to embodied compassion, body psychotherapy, and spiritual practices that center embodiment.