Bible-based trauma healing
From resources from the Trauma Healing Institute
The American Bible Society and other global partners have created training, resources, and support to help the Church respond to trauma in communities around the world. Built on a solid foundation of mental health best practices, their Bible-based model leads to sustainable trauma care in any context.
These resources have been used mostly in areas where people have suffered from conflicts but are applicable to any context. Think refugees in your community, rape victims, trauma in childhood, etc. Currently there are over 8000 trauma healing facilitators and caregivers and over 200 partner organisations involved. Healing the Wounds of Trauma materials for the core adult programme exist in 100+ languages.
How do people recover from trauma? Can the Bible help? What can the Church do? These questions were first asked by the four authors of Healing the Wounds of Trauma. They wanted to reconcile the suffering they saw to the healing God they know.
But the book was only the beginning. As demand for trauma healing continued to grow, it was clear that the Healing the Wounds of Trauma programme needed a supporting structure.
Trauma Healing Institute (THI) provides the architecture the program needed. They supply the programme model and materials to partner organizations to train, equip, and support local churches around the world.
What is Trauma?
Trauma is part of the human experience in the broken world. Trauma happens when a person is overwhelmed with fear, helplessness, or horror in the face of death. This effects their psychological, physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being.
This is the tragedy of trauma. Trauma disrupts lives, destroys hope, perpetuates in cycles of violence, isolates people from self, others, and God.
Their Approach
Healing the Wounds of Trauma helps local churches provide compassionate responses to traumatised people in their communities.
The model uses biblical and mental health principles for trauma healing. THI supports trauma healing in global communities through their “training the trainer” approach. The programme offers narrative, experiential, and participatory lessons to bring healing to traumatised people. Additionally, THI have contextualised the Healing the Wounds of Trauma model to reach diverse communities.
The Healing the Wounds of Trauma model has:
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Story-based versions for oral communicators
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Audio and TV versions for mass appeal
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Children and teen versions
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Translations in 100+ languages
The Lesson titles for the Adult programme:
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If God loves us, why do we suffer?
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How can the wounds of our hearts be healed?
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What happens when someone is grieving?
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Helping children who have experienced bad things
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Helping people who have been raped
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How can churches minister amidst HIV/AIDS?
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Caring for the caregiver
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Response: Taking your pain to the cross
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How can we forgive others?
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How can we live as Christians amidst conflict?
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Looking ahead
Watch this 2 minute video:
For more details, see here.
For details on becoming a facilitator, see here.
For details of training, see here.
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From resources from the Trauma Healing Institute, 07/05/2019