Trauma-Informed Pastoral Care: How to Respond When Things Fall Apart

Karen A. McClintock

Mar 2022 · Fortress Press

About this ebook

Clergy are more likely than ever to be called on to respond to community trauma, sitting alongside trauma survivors after natural disasters, racial violence, and difficult losses. In Trauma-Informed Pastoral Care: How to Respond When Things Fall Apart, pastoral psychologist Karen A. McClintock calls clergy to learn and practice "trauma-informed care" so they can respond with competence and confidence when life becomes overwhelming.

Weaving together the latest insights about trauma-informed care from the rapidly shifting disciplines of neuropsychology, counseling, and theology, she explains the body's instinctual stress patterns during and after trauma, guides readers through self-reflection and self-regulation in order to care for others and lower the risk of obtaining secondary trauma, and suggests culturally sensitive models for healing from overwhelming experiences.

McClintock particularly attends to the fact that across a lifetime in ministry, clergy accumulate and need to regularly heal multiple traumatic wounds. As a pastor and psychologist, she is perfectly positioned to help clergy recognize symptoms of trauma and commit to healing individual, community, and generational trauma with care and cultural sensitivity.

About the author

Karen A. McClintock, MDiv, PhD, is a clergywoman and psychologist. She is a national lecturer, congregational consultant, and workshop leader. She teaches courses on trauma-informed care for clergy, laity, mental health professionals, and chaplains. She has written six books about congregational care. Her newest is When Trauma Wounds: Pathways to Healing and Hope (Fortress, 2019). She lives in Ashland, Oregon.