Page 2 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 14

Editorial

Editorial

There was once a time, although that was certainly far back in the past,
when no-one spoke about stress; that is, the term was not widespread
at the time, and indeed unknown to most people. Not as if there was
no stress back then, for it has always existed! Since the end of the 19th
century, in fact, people have often spoken of “signs of fatigue”.
But such things as stress management competency, which refers to the
individual’s own responsibility for being stressed or not, first appeared
as part of a view that has developed since the 1960s. This is also the case
with the view that stress not only produces direct symptoms, but can
in turn be a factor in further mental incapacitations (diathesis stress
model).
The first differentiation which we make is between two kinds of stress:
the distress which causes us difficulties, and the eustress which, alt- intermay@gmx.net
hough it challenges us, does not exceed our coping capacity and can in
many cases be useful in waking us up or leading us on to greater efforts.
Distress comes in two variants, one which demands too little of us,
otherwise described as prolonged boredom, and one which demands
too much and can in the long term lead to burn-out. In analogy with
burn-out, one speaks in the case of too little challenge over a long time
period of a bore-out.
In this edition of Christian Psychology Around The World, we present a
colourful spectrum of questions to ponder over, urgent needs, practical
concepts, and experience.
Welcome to a journey into the “World of Distress”, taking with us in our
travelling bag these words of Jesus: “My burden is light” (Mt. 11,30) and
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the
world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”
(Jn. 14,27)

Yours,
Werner May, emcapp.eu

Why do we have a bilingual journal?
In our movement for Christian Psychology, we meet as Christians with very different backgrounds: different churches,
different cul-tures, different professional trainings…
There is a common desire for the movement, but highly “multi-lingual” ideas of its realization! Therefore, a bilingual
journal is just a small reference to our multilingual voices to remind us:
• Languages are an expression of cultures, countries and of their people. By writing in two languages, we want to show
our respect to the authors of the articles, to their origin and heritage, and at the same time symbolically show respect
to all the readers in other foreign countries.
• There are many foreign languages that we do not understand. Within our own language, we intend to understand
one another, but we fail to do so quite often. To really understand one another is a great challenge, and we also want
to point to this challenge by offering a bilingual journal.
• “When languages die, knowledge about life gets lost.” (Suzanne Romaine, 2011)
• Finally, there is a pragmatic reason: As we want to have authors from one special country to write the main articles
of every journal, it will be easier for them to distribute the journal in their own country, when it also is in their own
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language.