“Having a religious faith can be helpful in times of distress. Faith can help with coping amid traumatic events. Probably, the reason is that it encourages gratitude, hope, meaning, and forgiveness,” a researcher said, explaining how faith can reduce PTSD symptoms.
It has been shown that religious faith, including Christian faith, influences stress, coping, and health in various life circumstances and often it is found that it acts through crucial mechanisms such as social support, positive thinking, or things like gratitude, forgiveness, and meaning making.
The scholars were interested in how Christian faith encourages search for meaning and forgiveness and how these things might associate with symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Results reveal that Christian affiliation was related to forgiveness; however, it was not related to search for meaning. Search for meaning was related to more PTSD symptoms, while forgiveness was related to less PTSD symptoms.
Further analyses indicate that the effect of Christian religious affiliation on PTSD symptoms was stronger through forgiveness. Put differently, tendency of people toward forgiveness probably explains how Christian affiliation can reduce PTSD symptoms.
Toussaint told: “Having a religious faith can be helpful in times of distress. Faith can, first, help with coping amid traumatic events. Probably, the reason is that it encourages gratitude, hope, meaning, and forgiveness.
Second, in the above study, it was found that forgiveness was the crucial link between Christian faith and fewer symptoms of trauma”.
Toussaint said that he hopes people will consider looking to these things to help them adjust and move on productively in life. However, these topics and more research and support for this type of work should be emphasized.
The findings of this research is published in the Journal of Psychology of Religion and Spirituality.
source:shafaqna
