Existential and Spiritual Themes in Disaster Relief Work

 Mark Yang's paper directly here.

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Existential and Spiritual Themes in Disaster Relief Work

Mark C. Yang, PsyD

http://www.saybrook.edu/.../existential-and-spiritual...

Like many other mental health professionals around the world, in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake in Sichuan China in May of 2008, a number of the students and faculty from the Alliant International University’s Clinical Psychology Psy.D. program in Hong Kony Mark desperately wanted to utilize our training and expertise and be of some assistance to the survivors of the earthquake. The images we’ve seen through the media moved our hearts. Yet, we were very much unsure as to what we could offer. All of us lack experience with disaster relief work. Nevertheless, we just knew that there must be something we can offer from our training.

Eventually, we made contact with Dr. Yang You Chuan and Dr. Deng Hong from Huashi Hospital in the city of Chengdu in Sichuan, China who introduced us to a wonderfully dedicated team of volunteers who have been committed to helping the victims of the disaster. Through them, we have learned much about our limitations, our naivete, and what it means to serve the survivors of the earthquake. In the process, we have become friends.

What we’ve discovered is a parallel journey. We learned that just as the volunteers had to go and establish trusting relationships with the survivors before learning more about their needs, we the students and faculty from Hong Kong needed to do the same in terms of establishing the same trusting relationships with the volunteers first before we can begin to find out how best to serve. How often have we been taught in our clinical psychology program of the importance of doing a proper assessment? It was important that we find out what exactly are the needs of the volunteers and the survivors lest we end up serving ourselves and in the process adding to the burden of the volunteers. We found that this took time. We found that we had to be patient. We needed to have a long-term perspective. We very quickly found out that given our geographical separation, our lack of consistent availability and finally, our inability to speak the local dialect, there was very little we can do to help the survivors of the earthquake. It was a time of despair.

Yet, as we faced and sat with this despair, an opportunity presented itself to us! It became clear that our mission is the same as that of the volunteers. When I asked a committed group leader of the volunteers what help I can offer to him, I was thinking in terms of material and professional assistance. I was humbled by his response. He shared with me that the most important things he offers to the survivors are intangible. He travels weekly, three hours each way, to offer the survivors Support, Companionship/ Presence, and A Listen Ear. It became clear to me that this is exactly our role as volunteers. While there is little that we can offer directly to the survivors, we can take the same supportive and companionship role to the volunteers as they serve the survivors. The group leader reminded me of the most important fundamental healing factors in therapy. He shared with me that it is important for the survivors to know that they are not alone and have not been forgotten. This is the message that the students and I want to bring to the volunteers as they toil anonymously week to week. We want them to know that they are not alone and that we honor and support the work that they do.

This article is the result of our collaboration. We in the mental health field constantly remind caretakers of the importance of self-care. Ironically, sometimes we forget our own message. Thus, the students and I thought it be important for us to organize and initiate a weekend retreat for the volunteers to simply come together for a time of relaxation, revitalization, and sharing. Loosely based on the work of Victor Frankl (1959) and Logotherapy, we prepared two simple questions for reflection: How has the earthquake changed your life? And how has the earthquake changed and/or enhanced your worldview?

Presuming that the volunteers might be more comfortable talking about the changes and impact of the earthquake upon the survivors’ lives, we were intentional in asking the volunteers to think about the earthquake’s impact upon their own lives. This is consistent with the theme of self-care. We did not want an “out there” search for impersonal answers, but rather an “in here” search for personal meaning. We believed that such personal meanings discovered will ultimately lead to renewal and transformation. “Searching is a process of transformation from inside, facilitating transition and psychological shifts inwardly by which the individual moves the process of living from one stage of life to the next, forming patterns of beginnings and endings. These patterns become conscious and choiceful to the individual through the searching process lived in psychotherapy” (Heery & Bugental, n.d.). Or, in the words of Nietzsche, “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how” (as cited in Frankl, 1959). We believed that helping the volunteers to reflect upon their “whys” will help them to endure their ‘hows” leading to renewal.

What I write here are the themes that emerged from our weekend of sharing. What I remember most from the weekend is the amount of deep laughter that we shared. I’ve learned that in the face of tragedy, if we choose to heroically confront the suffering, what often emerges is a deeper sense of meaning and awe. It is entirely appropriate that laughter be the result. I wish you could have been there with us that weekend. This is not possible. Instead, what I can share with you through this article is the lessons that I’ve learned from the volunteers that weekend.

1] Letting Go and Living in the Moment

A basic existential belief is that Life and death are interdependent; they exist simultaneously, not consecutively. The rural survivors, being much closer to the land, perhaps closer to existence, being around life and death all the time with the birth, raising and slaughter of livestock, are much more accepting of life and the impermanence of life. A number of the volunteers shared that they were impressed with how the survivors have so quickly come to accept this truth. And I believe that the acceptance of this fundamental tenet that life and death are interdependent is critical to the wellbeing and spiritual growth of the survivors.

The wisdom of such a paradoxical view is expressed in these timeless quotes from the following philosophers and psychologists:

Seneca, “No man enjoys the true taste of life but he who is willing and ready to quit it” (as cited in Montaigne, 1965, p. 61).

Saint Augustine, “It is only in the face of death that man’s self is born” (as cited in Montaigne, 1965, p. 63).

Irvin Yalom (2002) “Although the physicality of death destroys man, the idea of death saves him” by Irvin Yalom (p. 126).

In other words, the physical earthquake has destroyed many lives, yet the earthquake has also saved and improved many lives.

The earthquake is an excellent reminder of the existential given that men are thrown into groundlessness, a concept advanced by Martin Heidegger (1962). Indeed the very ground that we walk and live on both gives and takes away life. Often, we talk figuratively about being shaken to our foundations. The earthquake serves as a powerful, undeniable, and literal reminder that indeed even our very basic foundation of living our everyday lives must not be taken for granted. Indeed life and death are simultaneous, not distinct nor consecutive. In order for the survivors to recover and even thrive, they must come to some form of acceptance that the earthquake is not an anomaly but an existential, everyday fact of life. Awareness and acceptance of this fact and the terrible consequences of the earthquake are something that we all must confront and out of this confrontation can come tremendous growth.

The growth that can result from this confrontation is that we live more authentically and live more in the moment. Martin Heidegger (1962) believed that there are two fundamental modes of existing in the world: (1) a state of forgetfulness of being or (2) a state of mindfulness of being.

Forgetfulness of Being: Living in the world of things. Heidegger refers to this as “inauthentic” living. Unaware, fleeing, tranquilized, avoiding choice. Everyday living.

Mindfulness: One marvels not about the way things are but that they are. Authentic, responsible for choice, awareness, transcendent. One embraces one’s possibilities and limits; one faces absolute freedom and nothingness – and is anxious in the face of them (note: not absence of anxiety).

The Letting Go I heard from a number of the volunteers point to this type of living. One volunteer talked about letting go of perfection (related to the forgiveness of herself and others). How she no longer waits until she’s attained some self-prescribed goal before rewarding herself with living. She was always striving and striving, always not quite good enough. She knew intellectually that she needed to let go, but her work with the survivors and the confrontations with the fragility of life impelled her with the courage to live in the present. Another volunteer talked similarly about living a slower pace of life internally. About simply enjoying walks in the park with her daughter. Prior to the earthquake, she’s always been too busy to take these walks and did not take the time to enjoy what was around her. But her work with the survivors helped her to enter in to an Ontological Way of Being (from the Greek ontos meaning “existence” or “being”) where one remains mindful of being, not only mindful of the fragility of being but mindful too of one’s responsibility for one’s own being (Heidegger, 1962). This is a state where one wonders not about why things are the way they are but that they are. From another perspective, both of these volunteers and others became aware the Buddhist’s concept of detachment – don’t cling to things, because everything is impermanent. Which paradoxically does not mean that you don’t let the experience penetrate you; on the contrary, you let it penetrate you fully. That is how one can finally detach. Finally, from the existential perspective, the volunteer’s work reminded me that existence/life cannot be postponed.

2] Putting Things in Perspective - Wonderment and Awe

In becoming more aware of our impermanence, we also gain a deeper appreciation of perspective. This came across in a number of ways in the sharing of the volunteers. First of all, a few of the Christian volunteers shared readily about how they recognized their limitations in the face of all the destruction and all the need. They readily recognized their insignificance in the presence of the Almighty God. They recognized that though they had numerous questions, they were limited in their understanding as to the reason for all this suffering. This reminded me of an analogy offered by Victor Frankl (1959) in his book Man’s Search for Meaning:

A question is asked whether an ape which was being used to develop poliomyelitis serum, and for this reason punctured again and again, would ever be able to grasp the meaning of it’s suffering? The answer is obvious. With it’s limited intelligence, it could not enter into the world of man, i.e., the only world in which the meaning of its suffering would be understandable.

And what about man? Are you sure that the human world is a terminal point in the evolution of the cosmos? Is it not conceivable that there is still another dimension, a world beyond man’s world; a world in which the question of an ultimate meaning of human suffering would find an answer?”

This ultimate meaning necessarily exceeds and surpasses the finite intellectual capacities of man. What is demanded of man is not, as some existential philosophers teach, to endure the meaninglessness of life, but rather to bear his incapacity to grasp its unconditional meaningfulness in rational terms (p. 99).

What Frankl is proposing above reminds me of the Taoist perspective of submitting to the Tao. Submitting to a hidden order of things. There seems to be a hidden order of things regarding life and death that some of the survivors implicitly knew. They were able to move on without being tormented by the never ending questions of Why?

I can also imagine the Christian volunteers understanding the following advice given by a A Hasidic sage: “When a man suffers, he ought not to say, ‘That’s bad! That’s bad!’ Nothing God imposes on man is bad. But it is all right to say, ‘That’s bitter! That’s bitter!’ For among medicines there are some that are made with bitter herbs.”

Whether you agree with the Christian or Hasidic tradition of surrender to the Almighty, there is undeniably a theme of surrender in the sharing of the volunteers. The main form of this surrender is asking the very real questions of “What can I do in the midst of such overwhelming need?” In the form of a statement, it becomes, “I see my insignificance next to such overwhelming need.” Which naturally begs the question, “what can I offer? What difference does it make if I go (to serve as a volunteer) this week or not?”

3] Heroic Nihilism

The opposite approach to surrender is defiance as characterized by Albert Camus. Camus (1955) went through a period in his thinking which started with nihilism and ended with what he called heroic nihilism. The volunteers from both Chengdu and Hong Kong went through a similar process when we were confronted with our limitations. Camus’ new vision posits that we can construct a new life meaning by cherishing our “nights of despair,” by facing the very vortex of meaninglessness and arriving at a posture of “heroic nihilism.” And the values of heroic nihilism consist of courage, prideful rebellion, fraternal solidarity, love, and secular saintliness.

A human being, Camus believed, can attain full stature only by living with dignity in the face of absurdity. The world’s indifference can be transcended by rebellion, a prideful rebellion against one’s condition. So in the face of such insurmountable suffering and need, Camus would admonish the survivors and all of us volunteers to persist to exist. Why should we continue to go? Because transcendence awaits us upon facing this despair. Camus (n.d) writes, “In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”

The volunteers that we shared the weekend with were all invincible heroes. They’ve transcended their ordinary lives by persisting to serve the survivors week after week. Out of the thousands of volunteers, they have persisted in their service. Their numbers is a testament to their persistence and invincibility. Their invincibility results from their consistent self-inquiry as to “why should I go?” Or even simply, “do I want to go?” and deciding to go nevertheless!

Finally, in terms of transcendence and putting things in perspective, I am reminded of an aphorism by Irvin Yalom, AAA = Altitude Attenuates Anxiety. This is about all of us coming to some sort of perspective, whether it’s submitting to a higher order to things, a stance characterized by heroic nihilism or surrendering to a higher power with awe. The ontological mindfulness evident in the lives and sharing of the volunteers testifies to such transcendence.

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References

Camus, A. (1955). The myth of Sisyphus and other essays. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Camus, A. (n.d.). Quotes. Retried January 9, 2010 from http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Albert_Camus.

Frankl, V. (1959). Man’s search for meaning. New York: Pocket Books.

Heery, M.,, Bugental, J. (n.d.). Meaning and Transformation: A Journey of Client, Psychotherapist, and Supervisor. Article downloaded on January 10, 2010 from http://www.human-studies.com/articles.html

Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and time. New York: Harper & Row.

Montaigne, M. E. (1965). The complete essays of Montaigne (Ed. & Trans., D. Frame). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Yalom, I. D. (2002). The Gift of Therapy. New York: Harper Collins.

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