Anxious Experts: Disaster Response and Spiritual Care from 9/11 to the Climate Crisis
Publisher
University of Pennsylvania
ISBN
9780812253825
Publication Date
1-1-2022
Description
The book also provides a lens through which to understand the historical dimensions of disaster-related trauma, its treatment, and the ways that therapeutic and spiritual practices imply politics. By studying the intersection of mental health and spirituality in the context of disaster, we gain essential insight into apocalyptic and dystopic beliefs that are prevalent today throughout the United States—and beyond. We learn not only about the role of particular forms of expertise in defining meaning but also the consequences this concept of meaning may have for how we imagine our relations to other humans and nonhumans, the climate crisis—and ultimately the kind of future we might imagine. This variety of therapeutic and spiritual practices, now deployed in the face of disaster, will be tested as humanity faces growing threats from the climate crisis and other cascading disasters. But it is not at all clear whether the particular kinds of knowledge we have managed to patch together will provide the resources we require to instill the capacities to face the repercussions of future disasters.
Disciplines
Anthropology
Keywords
risk and disaster
