After Trauma, Some Feel 'Nearer My God to Thee'
After Trauma, Some Feel 'Nearer My God to Thee'
June 16, 2000 -- One man began to pray to God while hospitalized for an injury. He now feels closer to God.
Another has been going to church ever since his accident as a way of thanking God for his family, friends, girlfriend, and everything else that's good in his life.
And yet another man says he prays to wish away his pain.
These men experienced pronounced changes in their spiritual beliefs after sustaining a spinal cord or brain injury, according to a study by Canadian researchers in the June issue of the journal Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. Of 16 patients in the new study, eleven said they had a significant loss or gain of faith at some time in their life -- two lost faith, seven gained faith, and two said they experienced both a gain and a loss of faith during their lifetimes.
Of the 11 patients who said they had a change in faith over their lifetime, seven of those changes coincided with or followed closely after their injury. In the new study, spirituality is defined as a relationship with the world, with a supreme power, with others, and with one's self.
Exactly why a person becomes more spiritual after a traumatic injury is unclear, but the researchers speculate that the change could be attributed to a "honeymoon period" after the accident in which there is an influx of community support to help the patient transition back into the world. Or perhaps, traumatic injury slows down people's lives for meditation and opens them up to different kinds of relationships with others.
"There are a number of reasons that a person who suffers a traumatic, disabling event will turn toward spirituality," says lead researcher Mary Ann McColl, PhD, of the School of Rehabilitation Therapy at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. "The magnitude of a disabling event defies any simple explanation, so people turn to the mysterious or the unknown to help them make sense of it," she tells WebMD.
"The experience of something like disability, death, or pain raises big, abstract, and otherworldly questions, such as 'Why did this happen?' 'Why me?' and 'Does this change the purpose of my life?'" McColl says. "There is a way of looking at this that connects people to a spiritual side, and it is more positive than grief."
After Trauma, Some Feel 'Nearer My God to Thee'
June 16, 2000 -- One man began to pray to God while hospitalized for an injury. He now feels closer to God.
Another has been going to church ever since his accident as a way of thanking God for his family, friends, girlfriend, and everything else that's good in his life.
And yet another man says he prays to wish away his pain.
These men experienced pronounced changes in their spiritual beliefs after sustaining a spinal cord or brain injury, according to a study by Canadian researchers in the June issue of the journal Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. Of 16 patients in the new study, eleven said they had a significant loss or gain of faith at some time in their life -- two lost faith, seven gained faith, and two said they experienced both a gain and a loss of faith during their lifetimes.
Of the 11 patients who said they had a change in faith over their lifetime, seven of those changes coincided with or followed closely after their injury. In the new study, spirituality is defined as a relationship with the world, with a supreme power, with others, and with one's self.
Exactly why a person becomes more spiritual after a traumatic injury is unclear, but the researchers speculate that the change could be attributed to a "honeymoon period" after the accident in which there is an influx of community support to help the patient transition back into the world. Or perhaps, traumatic injury slows down people's lives for meditation and opens them up to different kinds of relationships with others.
"There are a number of reasons that a person who suffers a traumatic, disabling event will turn toward spirituality," says lead researcher Mary Ann McColl, PhD, of the School of Rehabilitation Therapy at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. "The magnitude of a disabling event defies any simple explanation, so people turn to the mysterious or the unknown to help them make sense of it," she tells WebMD.
"The experience of something like disability, death, or pain raises big, abstract, and otherworldly questions, such as 'Why did this happen?' 'Why me?' and 'Does this change the purpose of my life?'" McColl says. "There is a way of looking at this that connects people to a spiritual side, and it is more positive than grief."
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