Emotions and Change in Spiritual Care

How does spiritual care help people change? What role do emotions play? Intercultural spiritual care helps people change their ‘lived theology/orienting system’—an emotionally-charged constellation of values, beliefs, and habitual ways of coping with stress. A case study based on the novel Affliction by Russell Banks and a film by the same title illustrates how trauma-related feelings of fear and shame pull together a lived theology for the protagonist, Wade Whitehouse, shaped by intersecting social systems of classism, sexism, and racism. His story illustrates the challenges of spiritually integrative spiritual care focused on emotionally charged lived theologies.