Religion, Disability, and Interpersonal Violence

This groundbreaking reference offers mental health professionals a rigorous, nuanced guide to working with abuse survivors with disabilities in religious communities. Expert contributors unravel complex intersections of disability, religion, and identity in the context of gender violence (including spotlights on racial, gender, and sexual minorities, Deaf persons, and men), and offer survivor-centered best practices for intervention. Chapters explore how responses from clergy and other religious figures may sometimes prevent survivors from seeking help, and how faith leaders can help to empower survivors. The concepts and research presented here support multiple purposes, from removing barriers to survivor services to working with religious communities to be more inclusive and transparent.

 Among the topics featured:

• From barriers to belonging for people with disabilities: Promising pathways toward inclusive ministry.
  
• Empowering women with intellectual disabilities to resist abuse in interpersonal relationships.
  
• Race, culture, and abuse of persons with disabilities.
  
• Ableist shame and disruptive bodies: Survivorship at the intersection of queer, trans, and disabled existence.
  
• From the narratives of survivors with disabilities: Strengths and gaps between faith-based communities and domestic violence shelters.

Religion, Disability, and Interpersonal Violence brings transformative insights to psychologists, social workers, and mental health professionals across disciplines providing guidance within religious and disabled communities in their clinical practice. It also provides valuable background for researchers seeking to examine the interface between religious culture and the abuse of persons with disabilities.

Andy J. Johnson, Ph.D., teaches at Bethel University in the graduate program in counseling as well as the undergraduate programs in psychology and religious studies. His research interests are in the areas of gender violence prevention, religious predictors of domestic violence and rape myth acceptance, and trauma and resiliency. He earned an MA and Ph.D. in counseling psychology from the University of Notre Dame. A previous volume he edited, Religion and Men's Violence Against Women, is also available through Springer.

J. Ruth Nelson, Ph.D., co-directs the Academic & Enrichment Support Center and teaches at Bethel University in the undergraduate program in developmental psychology and disability studies. She is a nationally certified school psychologist whose research interests are in the areas of developmental disabilities, psychoeducational/psychosocial/community interventions for individuals with disabilities across the life span, and faith integration with disability studies.

Emily M. Lund, Ph.D., is a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation at Boston University. She has presented extensively at professional conferences and has published over 40 peer-reviewed articles. Her primary research interests are violence against people with disabilities across the lifespan; suicide and non-suicidal self-injury, particularly as it relates to trauma and disability; and the experiences of post-secondary and graduate students with disabilities.