UDK 2-767:159.92

316.64:2]:159.964.21

Originalni naučni rad

Primljen: 27. 09. 2008.

Srdjan Sremac

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

 

THEORETICAL APPROACHES TO COPING WITH CRISIS AND CONVERSION

ABSTRACT

In the last several decades, many theorists have contributed research to the issues of coping with crisis and conversion, but have failed to find a common denominator for the two. Both coping and conversion are independent concepts and should not be confused. At the same time they are related phenomena. In this article, the author primarily underscore that structurally both coping and conversion are process of change, where a system of meaning is perceived as no longer the most adequate frame of reference for the life of individual. The aim of this article is to evaluate theoretical approaches to coping with crises and conversion and to emphasize necessity of interdisciplinary approaches.

Key words: crisis, religious coping, conversion, religion.

Adversae res admonent religionem.

Titus Livius

In the last several decades, many theorists have contributed research to the issues of coping with crisis and conversion, but have failed to find a common denominator for the two. Both coping and conversion are independent concepts and should not be confused. At the same time they are related phenomena. Structurally, both coping and conversion are processes of change, in which an individual experiences a transformation in either a mental or a spiritual (or both) sphere through finding a way out of the crisis. Several publications concerning conversion explain the importance of crisis for conversional experience. Such an understanding of crisis and conversion views crisis experience as an antecedent of conversion. Of course we do not suggest that every conversion per se brings people out of crisis. Even though the event of conversion can appear in different forms and occurrences, the experience of conversion finds its highest point in a crisis that requires resolution. There is an immense feeling of conflict that characterizes such conversion because the person is desperately looking for the meaning of life. If the person in such a situation turns to God, willing to give up everything for that relationship, although he/she is still pursued by feelings of despair and hope, only then can the person experience radical change in the religious conversion. As Kenneth Pargament, one of the most influential theorists of religion and coping, notes: "people bring a reservoir of religious resources with them when they face stressful times." Thus, the purpose of this article is to clarify the meaning of crisis experience in the process of religious conversion, to identify the relationship between religious coping and conversion, to explore how conversion is related to crises experiences, and to understand how conversion can help people to achieve positive well-being in the time of crisis. This will be accomplished through careful consideration of both our own and others' investigations and of theological and psychological literature. The questions to be answered when faced with crises are: Does crisis cause religious conversion? Does religious behavior change when crisis has occurred? Is religion a help or a hindrance in times of crises? What are the factors involved that make crisis experience change religious attitudes? And the final question therefore is: What is the nature of a crisis that stimulates conversion? These are the central questions in this article.

The Concept of Crisis

People are often confronted by life experiences which result in a crisis. These crises can have different sources, and they vary in duration, intensity, and scope. Many theorists define crises as "crucial time" and a turning point in the person's life. The term is often used for a person's internal reaction to external hazards. Hence, crises can be described as a turning point in life, where the individual faces a problem that he/she cannot solve by using the coping mechanisms that have worked for him/her before.

Crisis may occur when an individual is unable to deal effectively with stressful changes in the environment. A stressful event alone does not constitute a crisis; rather, crisis is determined by the individual's view of the event and response to it. If the individual sees the event as significant and threatening, has exhausted all his/her usual coping strategies without effect, and is unaware or unable to pursue other alternatives, then the precipitating event may push the individual toward psychological disequilibrium, a state of crisis. Psychological disequilibrium may be characterized by feelings of anxiety, helplessness, fear, inadequacy, confusion, agitation, and disorganization. At this point, the individual experiencing this disequilibrium may be most receptive to an other resource such as religion, thus providing an opportunity for behavioral change and return to balance. Moreover, crises occur episodically during the normal life of an individual. Between one phase and the next are periods of dedifferentiated behavior, transitional periods characterized by cognitive and affective upset. These periods have been called developmental crises. A situational crisis is a reaction to the serious frustrations produced by specific external events, such as marriage disruption or business failure. Frustration is a condition of growth. The way a person handles and assimilates the elements of frustration is determinative of his direction in life. The other type of crisis is accidental crisis; a form of crisis that is not part of every day life. Accidental crises are unplanned and accidental resulting from traumatic events such as war, illness, an accident, sudden death, or a natural disaster.

There are some major characteristics of crisis experiences that include the presence of both danger and opportunity. Caplan claims that: "Every crisis presents both an opportunity for psychological growth and the danger of psychological deterioration." Thus, crisis is a significant event in the life of an individual upon which his/her future life will depend on, a speeding up of the individuals' emotional and intellectual processes, as well as the potential for new insights. As a consequence, there is not only a solution of the problems but there is also a reorganization of personality around a new center and on a higher level. At this point, Boisen believes that religious experience can be one form of crisis resolution that may be taken. But there is a necessity of choice by which, according to Caplan crisis is defined as a choice point. Gillespie is of the opinion that conflicts "whether emotional or psychological in nature, actually may precipitate decision and even encourage them." This is a very important observation because in the converts' process of crisis, active freedom of choice and self-conscious decision-making are noticeable and affect the change of individual life. Rambo puts it in this way; "converts are active agents in their conversion process." Possibilities and choices are the hallmark of coping with crises. Therefore, responses to crises are an active process involving choices in times of trouble.

Furthermore, research on coping and crises has found that painful aspects of life crisis cannot be denied. Individuals often emerge from a crisis with new coping skills, closer relationship with people and God, and a richer appreciation of life. Crises also may lead a person to search cognitively for the positive aspects of a situation and to find some deeper meaning from it. Lazarus and Folkman have noted that "humans are meaning-oriented, meaning-building creatures who are evaluating everything that happens." For many people searching for meaning helped them to understand the crisis and its implications and to take control over the crises in their lives. Coping is an active searching for significance in times of crises. In my previous empirical research I have found that many former drug addicts reported that their addictions brought a new attitude toward life and reordered goals and priorities. As Haan notes: "Stress benefits people, making them more tender, humble, and hardy".

To summarize, a crisis is a state of disorganization and disequilibrium for which a person does not have adequate coping skills. Ganzevoort puts it in this way by defining crises "as a disturbance of meaning due to the appraisal of events as too demanding and resources as too limited and visible in symptoms of the disruption of psychological equilibrium." According to Pargament, crises "destabilize 'tried and true' methods for dealing with problems and call for new solutions. Painful as they may be, stressful periods represent a crossroads, a point at which the individual may have to choose among paths that lead in very different directions." If an individual turns in a religious direction, the outcome may be a conversion. Research has shown that times of crises are the most creative periods in the religious life of individuals.

The Concept of Coping

Multiple empirical studies have shown that significant changes in the life of an individual are connected with crisis experiences and efforts made by the individuals to adjust to new circumstances. Crisis life events are one of the most common topics in the area of research of basic determinants of psychological health, because of the observed connection with the way people function and adjust. American social psychologists Richard Lazarus, Susan Folkman and others made considerable contribution to the development of models of crisis and coping in the late 1960s and 1970s. They developed a theory of crisis and stress which emphasized appraisal and coping. In their theory coping refers to efforts to master conditions of harm, threat, or challenge when a routine or automatic response is not readily available. Lazarus and Folkman define coping as "constantly changing cognitive and behavioral efforts to manage specific external and/or internal demands that are appraised as taxing or exceeding the resources of the person."

There are three key components in Lazarus and Folkman approach. First, the focus of coping is on problems, situations, or events of significance for the person, rather than events people respond to more automatically. Second, coping involves both cognitive and behavioral effort where by individuals try to understand and deal with crisis events. And third, coping is essentially concerned with the process of change and the process of interaction of individuals struggling to come to grips with specific life demands.

The cognitive approach to coping is based on a mental process of how the individual appraises the situation. The level of appraisal determines the level of stress and the unique coping strategies that the individual applies. There are three types of appraisals, the primary, the secondary and re-appraisal.

Primary appraisals deal with an evaluation of the situation itself and are applicable when an individual concentrates on the magnitude of an event or situation possibly for harm. Thus, a primary appraisal is the interpretation of a situation as damaging, challenging, threatening, or conducive to positive well-being. As Aldwin claims: "a person must be aware of a problem before he or she begins to cope with – however that awareness is defined, or comes about". Thus, we can say that primary appraisals are evaluations of life events in terms of their implications for the individual's well-being.

Secondary appraisals deal with an evaluation of the individual's ability and options to handle the situation. This appraisal of the variety of coping skills available to the individual occurs in relation to, not necessarily after, a primary appraisal of a situation.

Re-appraisal is, according to Lazarus and Folkman, the change in interpretation as a result of a change in conditions. This appraisal is an outcome of the coping process.

In moving to the third element of the coping process, coping activities, we shift from cognitive to an action focus. Depending on how the situation is appraised, the individual can handle it in a variety of ways. Lazarus and Folkman suggested a classification of coping which emphasizes two major categories: problem-focused and emotion-focused modes. Problem-focused refers to any behavioral effort by the person to deal with harm, threat, or challenge by altering his/her troubled relationship within the environment. This coping dimension involves strategies that attempt to reconceptualize or minimize the effects of stressful situations. Emotion-focused coping refers to thoughts or actions intended to relieve the emotional impact of the crisis. The purpose of emotion-focused action is to soften or moderate distress, in short to seek comfort and make the person feel better. This coping dimension includes strategies that involve self-preoccupation, fantasy, or other conscious activities that affect regulation. The emotion-focused type of coping can be understood as a defense mechanism. The above classifications of coping processes are not exclusive of each other, but people can employ complex combinations of problem-focused and emotion-focused methods to cope with crisis. Hence, many theorists do not attempt to arrange coping efforts hierarchically. Although controlling the emotions might make efforts to solve a problem easy and likely show that solving a problem satisfactorily is one of the best ways of managing emotions.

Some coping researchers suggested that emotion-focused coping may be more influenced by personality characteristics, while problem-focused coping may be more affected by the situation. Ganzervoort suggests that "coping should not be investigated in terms of the person or the situation alone, but in terms of their interaction."

Thus, we can say that coping is an interaction between the person's internal resources and external environmental demands. It is also defined as constantly changing cognitive and behavioral efforts to manage specific demands that are appraised as potentially taxing or exceeding a person's resources. Coping includes attempts to reduce the perceived discrepancy between situational demands and personal resources. In order to admit chronological separateness, Wilcox and Vernberg proposed terms event-appraisal and resource-appraisal. The appraisal of events and resources leads to the choice of those coping activities perceived as relevant and adequate. This choice is referred to by Pargament as tertiary appraisal.

The last dimension of the coping-process is the coping outcome which is multidimensional. We can speak of situational outcomes – how the situation turned out; psychological outcomes - e.g. the individual's self-esteem; social outcomes - e.g. interpersonal, familial change; and physical outcomes, e.g. health status.

Finally, it is important to note that in the process of coping a person can be guided by a number of important psychological functions: Self-esteem, a sense of control in life, a sense of meaning in life, personal growth, a sense of hope in life, feelings of intimacy and belonging with other people, a sense of personal identity and feelings of comfort in life.

To summarize, coping is defined as the use of strategies for dealing with actual crises and their attendant negative emotions. The coping process involves every dimension of human functioning, which are cognitive, affective, behavioral, and psychological. The social and cultural environments can influence both the appraisal of crisis and the use of coping strategies. Appraisals affect coping activities. Coping activities can lead to re-appraisal of the situation. As Pargament notes: "Coping serves different purposes for different people dealing with different events in different contexts."

In concluding this section, I will formulate some questions that might be addressed. How can religion be helpful to people dealing with crisis in their life? What purpose does religion serve in crisis events? In the next section our goal will be to show how religion plays a particularly valuable role as an available resource for coping when people are pushed to the limits of their resources.

Religious Coping

In the field of religious coping research, Kenneth Pargament's book The Psychology of Religion and Coping: Theory, Research, Practice is considered to be an authoritative text for today. Pargament and his colleagues have developed several frameworks for understanding and measuring the many ways in which individuals may incorporate religiousness into coping efforts. He suggests that a religious coping model might better explain the relationship between religiosity and psychological well-being. He argues that such a theoretical model addresses the complex and continuous process by which religion connects with an individual's life and allows them to deal with crisis in life.

Pargament clarifies that religion and coping can influence each other, but he does not give equal attention to both sides of this interaction. He explains that both coping and religion deal with matters of great value and importance in life. According to Pargament, the coping process is oriented to stressful life experiences that may involve religious thoughts, practices, feelings, and objects of significance, but not necessarily. Religion, on the other hand, is oriented to the sacred. He emphasizes that religion is not simply a way of coping. He notes "not all coping is religious, and not all religion is coping; neither process completely subsumes the other."

Pargament suggests a more dynamic and more situational based view of the religious dimension of coping. He defines religious coping as a "process that people engage in to attain significance in stressful circumstance." In fact, religion often comes to center stage in critical situations. As psychologist of religion Paul Johnson put it: "Crises often turn men to religion because they are dramatic exposures of urgent need." Here it is important to highlight that people cope religiously because religion is available and obtainable to them. Religion offers a more convincing route to significance than nonreligious alternatives. (For this reason, on this issue, it is important to remark that crisis is seen as a period of religious significance. )

Elaborating on the Lazarus and Folkman model of coping as mentioned earlier, Pargament notes that religion can be part of each of the central constructs of coping. We can speak of crisis religious events, religious appraisal, religious coping activities, outcomes, motivations and religious purpose in coping. For instance appraisals, both primary and secondary, can also be religious in nature. Religion offers a number of ways for understanding life events. Some people evaluate events such as: a reward from God; punishment from God; lessons from teaching God, etc. Furthermore, religion may be a central part of an individual's secondary appraisal - what can be done about the situation.

Second, religion can be a contributor to the coping process, shaping the character of life events, coping activities, and the outcome of events. Several studies have demonstrated the unique and important contributions of religious commitment and spiritual support to the adjustment of people facing crisis.

Third, religion can be a product of the coping process through attributions to God. Positive outcome events are more likely to trigger attributions to God's love. Negative outcomes events are more likely to be seen as a result of God's anger. De-conversion process can be understood as a negative outcome. Some people in the midst of crises turn to other resources or find that their faith is no longer for them, even if they were religious before. Therefore, for some people religion is not an important part of life, and crisis does not change their attitude toward religion. For others, religion is a part of their orienting system in times of crisis.

Attention should also be placed on the styles of religious coping identified as self-directing, deferring, and collaborative that have been proposed and which vary in the level of activity or passivity attributed to the individual and to God in problem situations. The self-directing style describes a relationship with God in which individuals are active and God is primarily passive. The deferring approach in which individuals take a passive role in coping efforts, as they believe God to be fully responsible for coping. The collaborative coping style describes a mutually active partnership in which both the individual and God have active roles in resolving problem. Pargament's review concluded that the collaborative approach to religious coping is typically helpful, whereas the self-directing and deferring approaches have less positive results.

It should be noted that whether religion becomes a part of the coping process depends on a complex of personal, contextual, and situational factors. Spilka and his colleagues suggest three kinds of variable which determine whether an individual uses religious or nonreligious attributions. The variables suggested are the nature of the person, the nature of the situation and the nature of the context.

At the personal level, religion should be a more integral part of coping for those who are more religiously committed and involved. More extrinsically-oriented people may "use their religion" in a more limited range of life situations than those who are less extrinsically-oriented. According to Pargament's evaluation of different studies, religious coping is more common among blacks, the socially disadvantaged, the elderly, women, and those who are more troubled.

At the situational level, religious coping is more common in situations that are more threatening and harmful than in other situations. Pargament suggests that religion will be particularly involved in coping in situations of incomprehensible origin where direct action to solve the problem is impossible.

Finally, at the contextual level religious coping is better understood within certain congregations, cultures, and traditions and among those more involved in their religious context. McGuire, a sociologist of religion, emphasizes how the community affects the experience and plausibility of religion. She notes that "religion represents an important tie between the individual and the larger social group, both as a basis of association and as an expression of shared meanings." Here it is important to highlight the influence of context on conversion. The fact is that the conversion experience does not occur in a vacuum. Thus, strong social influences on person must be taken into account. Context shapes the nature, structure, and the process of conversion. Gillespe puts it in this way saying that "conversion...occur within culture and take the shape of cultural norms and forms, so the person and his experience are formed by this social, cultural context." Thus, both conversion and the coping process never take place outside of a cultural context.

Some have criticized Pargament's approach. The first problem has been his emphasis on the quantitative approach. He occasionally uses qualitative research methods, but disqualifies their scientific value, calling them "anecdotal" and "self-report." Doing research on religious studies requires us to pay more attention to qualitative methods in order to critically testi religious experiences. It is for this reason that Bellah and his associates in Habits of the Heart use what they call the "active interview" as their primary tool for gathering information on their subjects. It is a hermeneutical method designed to engage their subjects in dialogue. He notes: "we sought to bring our preconceptions and questions into the conversation and to understand the answers we were receiving not only in terms of the language but also, so far as we could discover, the lives of those we were talking with." Furthermore, Ganzevoort notes that Pargament does not given enough attention to the influence of crisis and coping on religion. He claims that Pargament "has treated religion too much as a stable system and not as a dynamic process, changing over time and influence by life-experience such as crisis and coping." Thus, religious coping and conversion needs a multidimensional model of research.

To summarize, religious coping has been conceptualized as a mediator for the relationship between religiousness and mental health in times of crisis. In the framework of religious coping, crisis periods have been identified as significant moments for the development of faith. There is no doubt that crises can become an opportunity for closeness to God. Crises open doors for spiritual growth and positive transforming of mental health. As Spilka notes: ""the faith factor" is a powerful force in coping. It makes everything meaningful and strengthens our hand in dealing with the world." Hereafter, the faith factor will be evaluated to see how well it assists conversion in the resolution of inner conflict.

Conversion and Crisis

I will now turn to the influence of crisis on the phenomena of conversion. Some form of crisis usually precedes conversion. Most scholars of conversion acknowledge this fact. Among the first social theorists to note the importance of crisis in the conversion process were John Lofland and Rodney Stark. They describe these crises as a "felt discrepancy between some imaginary ideal state of affairs and the circumstances in which these people saw themselves caught up." Johnson is of the opinion that in every conversion process there is a crisis. He is convinced that authentic religious conversion is the outcome of crises. He claims that: A genuine religious conversion is the outcome of a crisis. Though it may occur to person in a variety of circumstances and forms, and though we may find many preparatory steps and long-range consequences, the event of conversion comes to focus in a crises of ultimate concern. There is in such conversion a sense of desperate conflict in which one is so involved that his whole meaning and destiny are at stake in a life-or-death, all-or-none significance.... If in such a crises a person reaches out to Thou, willing to give all himself to this relationship, and out of mingling despair and hope... he may be radically changed in a religious conversion.

I intentionally quoted the whole passage because in this definition there are some specifics, which are of main concern. Lewis Rambo, one of the most influential theorist of religious conversion, put it in this way saying that: "The crisis may be the mayor force for change, or it may be simply the catalytic incident that crystallizes the person's situation." Rambo divides crises into two basic types: 1) those which call into question people's fundamental orientation to life; and 2) those which are rather mild in themselves.

Empirical studies also point to the connection between crises and conversion. John Lofland and Rodney Stark observed participants in a cult in an urban area and found that some sort of crisis initiated a religious quest. Furthermore, Kox, Meeus, and Hart did research among nine-two Dutch adolescents and tested the Loflands and Starks model of religious conversion. Their results show that converts have experienced personal problems far more often, sixty-seven percent, compared to twnety percent, who had no such experience. Converts were also more likely than the nonconverts to report a major life event prior to their conversion. Chana Ullman in her research evaluated the contribution of several cognitive factors and emotional factors (e.g. childhood relationship with parents and adolescence stress and trauma) in precipitating religious conversion. In her research converts reported more traumatic events during childhood and described their adolescence as unhappy. In the interviews with converts, personal stress was reported more often than cognitive quest as characterizing the two year period preceding conversion and as involved in the immediate consequences of conversion. Of course, it is also important to note that a significant percentage of converts did not report crisis just prior to their conversion.

Conclusion

There are a few major points to be highlighted based upon this review. Structurally both coping and conversion are processes of change, where a system of meaning is perceived as no longer the most adequate frame of reference for the life of individual. Many theorists agree that a crisis experience is an antecedent of conversion and it's typically occurs under pressure. Crises force individuals to confront their limitations and can stimulate religious resources to resolve problems. As Pargament notes "chronic or acute tension often precede radical religious change." Certainly, crises can provide an opportunity for new religious options, which can culminate in conversional experience.

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Srdjan Sremac

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

TEORIJSKI PRISTUP SAVLADAVANJU KRIZE I KONVERZIJI

Rezime

Poslednjih godina mnogo je pisano u oblastima teologije i psihologije religije o reli-gijskom savladavanju krize (coping) i konverziji. Međutim, mali broj autora pokušao je da pronađe zajedničke imenitelje za oba koncepta. U radu autor predstavlja teorijski okvir u istraživanju religijskog savladavanja i konverzije u kontekstu kriznih perioda, te ukazuje na zajedničke imenitelje koji sačinjavaju oba koncepta. Strukturalno religijsko savladava-nje krize (coping) i konverzija se u radu razumeju kao procesi u kojima osoba traga za smislom u periodima krize i stresa. Nadalje, autor ukazuje na neophodnost interdiscipli-narnog pristupa u proučavanje oba fenomena.

Ključne reči: kriza, religijsko savladavanje krize, konverzija, religija.