A Case Reflection – Religious faith and Resilience by Prabha Srinivasan

Matt* was referred to counselling by the local police force, after experiencing strong suicidal ideation and making repeated threats to end his life. During the intake process, Matt described how annoyed he was at people for “not doing their jobs properly”, “abusing and walking all over” him and “throwing” him “under the bus”. He explained how he felt guilty and disappointed in himself for being angry at people when he is “supposed to be kind, good and god-fearing”. Matt presented with a history of long-standing mental health diagnoses including depression and PTSD, some of which were related to a serious injury in his workplace. He had slipped and fell from the roof, broke his back and “never got up” since, in his words.

The first counselling session was focussed on understanding Matt’s history, his childhood experiences and early relationships. He described an adverse traumatic childhood filled with abuse from his birth parents until the age of three, followed by further serious abuse from his foster parents, with a cumulatively intense and negative affect on him. The initial sessions were spent empathising, validating and understanding Matt’s painful past. After initial risk assessment, screening and risk management plan, Matt’s presenting issues were identified as: blanking out, feelings of rage, violation and suicidality. His presenting issues were synonymous with symptoms commonly seen in people with developmental trauma and repeated adverse childhood events (Bloomfield et al. 2021; Cruz et al., 2022; Ford, 2021).

In the second and third sessions, we discussed the impact of trauma on brain development and its relevance to Matt’s life. Using the lens of developmental trauma, our conversations revolved around identifying parallels between Matt’s past trauma and the current dominant thoughts, feelings and behaviours. He identified a few long-standing impacts as the result of his childhood trauma such as difficulty reading and writing from an early age, issues setting boundaries, constant feelings of guilt, feeling unworthy, and a self-sacrificing attitude to continuously be “kind” to others even at the expense of his own wellbeing. We identified some tangible goals in the areas of assertive communication, boundary setting, and reparenting himself in a positive manner.

What struck me through the first three sessions was a sense of faith. Despite his traumatic history, Matt constantly referred to Christianity and his belief in the “Lord”. Though not a practising Christian myself, I could see the strength that Matt’s religious faith was providing him. Taking a pluralistic stance, I intentionally steered our next conversation towards Matt’s religious views (Cakmak, 2022; Waller et al., 2010). When working with clients’ faith in a therapeutic context, literature suggests actively promoting clients’ spirituality and seeing clients’ views as functionally true for them – even when not literally true for the therapist (Waller et al., 2010). As I paraphrased Matt’s views about his faith and the role it has played in his resilience, I witnessed his energy shifting further towards strength. Based on the changes I witnessed in Matt’s body language and tone of voice, I gathered that we were moving in a direction that was therapeutically helpful (Tarragona, 2008). Together we started writing prayers that Matt read every morning such as “Lord help me stand up for myself today”, “Lord help me forgive them for they know not what they are doing” and “Lord help me surrender my struggles to you” (following traditional Christian prayer structures). By the sixth session, Matt reported to me that the prayers were energising him and helping him regulate his emotions through the day.

In the seventh session, we discussed feelings of guilt and shame, which are often inherent in those with abusive childhoods (Waller et al., 2010). We came up with an analogy of guilt and shame being the sinking ship and taking refuge in a floating ship – thoughts aligned with Matt’s view of God such as: “I am made in the image of God”, “I take pride in myself for I am the work of God”. Within our conversation, Matt reflected on his habitual thought patterns that involve guilt, shame, anger and suicidality as the “hamster wheel” and aligning himself with God as his way out of this negative cycle.

In the eighth and ninth session, we discussed various spiritual verses at length, using them to reinterpret Matt’s painful past and to see it through God’s eyes. During these conversations, Matt highlighted how he felt overcome by a feeling of bliss once, when communing with God. I asked him if we could refer to that memory as his “happy place” and use it to help him “exit the hamster wheel”. Matt agreed to develop a practise of cultivating an inner sanctuary by remembering and reliving the “happy place” for few minutes every morning (Jijina et al., 2012)

By the tenth session, Matt identified a deep and lingering sense of sadness linked to his experiences of childhood abuse. We discussed how he could surrender this sadness to God and together pondered on finding “the door that can let this sadness go to God”. Matt came up with the term “righteousness” as the solution mentioned in the Bible. We looked up the word and discussed how to interpret Matt’s past through the sense of righteousness. Towards the end of that conversation, he stated that the sadness belongs to the world while himself and other humans are in the world but not off this world, implying that humans belong to God. I saw Matt’s eyes light up and enthusiastic joy bubbling in him as we deconstructed and reconstructed his painful past (Coyle, 2024; Tarragona, 2008). Matt decided to practise the sense of righteousness whenever he becomes aware of this lingering feeling.

During the next two counselling sessions, Matt continued to work on recognising his past trauma and its impact on his mental health, while using his faith as his primary source of strength. I found this work deeply fulfilling and opening my worldview of what it means to be a curious counsellor. I not only learnt new concepts within the Christian religious framework such as “righteousness” but also felt touched by the collaborative effect that this therapeutic process had enabled. Matt’s ability to develop trust, rapport and willingness paired with my own sense of curiosity and openness were the main contributing factors to this success. Had I steered away from conversation on faith, the counselling approach may have come across as too clinical and impersonal, possibly resulting in client disengagement. Had I allowed my “not-knowing” of Christian faith to be a barrier and referred this client to a Christian counsellor, I would have missed the opportunity to witness the client’s profound shift from suicidality to glimpses of hope.

A Case Reflection – Religious Faith and Resilience