Christian Approaches to Supporting Resilience: Praying the Psalms

SUMMARY: Christians have prayed the Psalms for 2000 years, adopting and modifying a practice that began in ancient Judea. From very early days, Christians prayed the Psalms not only during worship, but as individual expressions of praise, petition, distress, and hope. In our era, Christians of every stripe pray the Psalms, some regularly as part of corporate and personal worship, others only occasionally or in a modified form as found in contemporary praise songs. This talk identifies ways in which praying the Psalms frames Christian experience for those who experienced stress, distress, and psychological trauma. It identifies specific and ancient ways a Psalm can be adopted as a personal prayer to God. It suggests that, by God’s grace, praying the Psalms can serve as a bridge to the transcendent for those who are suffering extreme psychological distress. We will also discuss ways in which the Psalms provide support for known resilience factors such as the identification of meaning in adversity, gratitude, a moral compass, and social support.

PRESENTER: Samuel Thielman, MD, PhD, is Adjunct Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Duke currently living near Asheville. From 2000-2016 he was a regional psychiatrist for the U.S. Department of State. During the 2000s, he and his family lived in Nairobi, Kenya where he supported U.S. government employees in East and Central Africa. He has published numerous papers on the psychological effects of the 1998 Nairobi embassy bombing on Americans and Kenyans. During 2014-2015 he served as Senior Advisor for Resilience at the Foreign Service Institute as part of a team that developed a resilience training curriculum that received the “Training Design and Development Award” of the Federal Training Officers Consortium. In addition, Thielman has an ongoing interest in the connection between spirituality and mental health. Among his recent publications are “The Fraught History of Psychiatry and Christianity” published as the first chapter of Christianity and Psychiatry (Springer, 2021), “Treating Evangelical Christians: Challenges and Opportunities” in Psychiatric Services 2024;75(10):1049-1052, and “Praying the Psalms: From Trauma to Resilience in Tackling Trauma” (Langham Global Library, 2019).