Page 22 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 14

Maria Joubert (Russia) Maria Joubert,
Comment to
“A Holistic Perspective
of Stress”
An article by Steven L. Voss is focused on the
current topic of stress. The author aimed to
“consider stress as modern construct that can
be understood physically, psychologically,
and spiritually.”
The author starts out the article reminding a
reader various facts about stress and its ne-
gative impact on the physical and mental
health of a person. Consequently, the author’s
conclusion looks clear: the response to stress
should be the retreat, taking care of one’s phy-
sical and mental health, relaxation and resto-
ration of the lost balance. Perhaps the author’s
discourse would be more complete if he also
touched on the topic of the impact of stress on
spiritual health.
Another part of the article is dedicated to
the modern concept of stress. The author,
referring to researches of Kugelmann and
Hutmacher, speaks of the widespread use of
the term ‘stress’ in the last half of 20th cen-
tury and points out that over time the word
‘stress’ began to replace person’s experiences
of “worry, depression, grief, sorrow, and other
emotions”. It seems that the concept of stress
has become all-embracing, and vast variety of
human experiences may be called just ‘stress’.
This arises a question if there are some risks
that the focusing on the concept of stress is
replacing the meaning of all these emotional
and moral experiences and to devalue them.
If it is so, does it mean that in this case thera- chological, and spiritual levels, as a person was
py are forced to deal with client‘s stress, and
not to relate to the essential content of his ex- ver, after reading this text, a reader still won-
perience and its sense.
Speaking about a theological perspective, the
term ‘stress’ toward a person’s relationship
with God may be also problematic. In the si-
20
MA in Pasto-
Theology,
ral
psychologist in
“The ABIGAIL”
Psychological
C o un s e l lin g
Centre, Kras-
noyarsk, Russia.
maria.y.joubert@gmail.com
Former contributions in our eJournal by
Maria you can see her:
https://emcapp.ignis.de/12/#p=106
https://emcapp.ignis.de/3/#/144
tuation of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from
the original garden God does not worry about
their stress. He cares about other things. Of
course, God helps a person in all situations, in-
cluding stressful ones, and this is a matter of our
faith. However, God saves a person and takes
care of his soul without concern how to reduce
a person’s stress level. We can assume that stress
is not the subject of a relationship between God
and the man. When a person experiencing re-
pentance, he faces one of the biggest stress. We
may suppose that for God in His care of human
soul, the depth of person’s remorse is more im-
portant than the force of human stress.
The main idea of the author was to tell about
stress as a modern construct on physical, psy-
designed by God as a body-soul-spirit. Howe-
ders “how does human stress manifest itself in
the context of the spiritual level?” and “what is
the structure of stress in the spiritual space?”,
because the answers on these questions are not
much clear from the article.