For those who are going through some of life’s most difficult situations, what might gratitude look like? Does it even make sense to talk about gratitude? And what is helpful about such gratitude, and what might not be as helpful or even harmful?
These are some of the big picture questions that my psychology colleagues and I have been grappling with as we address the objectives of a CCCU Networking Grant exploring gratitude interventions for chronic pain.
In this blog post, we share some of our musings about gratitude, chronic pain, Christian faith, and culture.
Paul Kim: We as a society like to think of gratitude as an individualistic endeavor; an intrapersonal posture that can lead to action (e.g., a grateful person writing a thank you note). We often discuss gratitude as individually cultivated. Without dismissing the validity of this emphasis, it is also valuable to think about the importance of facilitating processes and systems of support that contribute to the development and maintenance of gratitude practices. Which aspects of gratitude can be framed at the systemic or relational level?
Munyi Shea (MS): I agree with your observation that our culture tends to conceptualize gratitude as an individualistic undertaking. Psychological research has largely reflected this view, often conceptualizing gratitude as an intrapersonal disposition, emotional state, or individual action. You mentioned the example of writing a thank-you note—something I enjoy doing and also relish receiving.
To me, gratitude does not arise in isolation; it is a reciprocal process shaped by the environments, relationships, and social norms that give it meaning. Within relational contexts, certain values and norms can help cultivate gratitude. When values such as interconnectedness and humility are emphasized and practiced, we become more attuned to our mutual impact on one another and the environment. In turn, we are less likely to attribute outcomes solely to individual effort and more likely to appreciate the processes, resources, and communities that make them possible.
I recently attended a talk at my university where refugee women from Ukraine and Sudan shared their experiences of war and resettlement in the U.S. Despite the atrocities they had endured and the ongoing challenges they continue to face, they expressed profound gratitude toward the nonprofit organization that supported their resettlement, the university that offered educational opportunities, the individuals who came alongside them, and the more than 200 audience members who cared enough to come and listen to their stories. Their reflections reminded me that when systems, from local communities and nonprofit organizations to institutions and receiving societies, prioritize relational safety, belonging, and dignity, authentic gratitude can emerge.
In contrast, power dynamics and social or cultural scripts can undermine the experience and expression of gratitude. Societal norms that frame opportunity as earned, reward deference from those with less power, and discourage critique of unequal systems can pressure members of marginalized communities to feel grateful for access that should be considered ordinary rights. Similarly, immigration policies and employer-dependent visa structures can pressure employees on work visas to express gratitude simply for being hired or for maintaining employment. At an organizational level, gratitude may be reduced to surface-level, performative recognition, such as “shout-outs” that highlight individuals while overlooking the shared contributions of those in less visible positions. Cultural narratives that emphasize the debt of reciprocity can further reinforce the expectation that gratitude be expressed as obligation and perpetuate chronic guilt. In these contexts, gratitude becomes transactional, signaling indebtedness rather than authentic appreciation.
Dave Wang (DW): Munyi, what a beautiful example of gratitude, and what an important caveat about how we can weaponize it when those in power impose upon an expectation of it upon those who are marginalized. One of the themes that emerges in me as I reflect on what you shared is that genuine gratitude must be an act of free will. There is beauty when a gift (whether it is the gift of our presence, our time, our care, our resources) is given freely with no strings attached and when the recipient of that gift acknowledges this gift and receives it with gratitude—not under compulsion or guilt, but in freedom as well. And when I reflect on the beauty of this kind of gratitude, especially on a relational level, the first place that comes to mind is our relationship with God. Practicing gratitude as a spiritual discipline cannot be an individual endeavor. It is an invitation to receive the grace of God in our lives with the recognition that all of life is a gift from God. And because grace is a gift that cannot be earned, it is not ours by right or entitlement. Ron Rolheiser explains this well: “Proper gratitude is ultimate virtue. It defines sanctity. Saints, holy persons, are people who are grateful, people who see and receive everything as gift.”1
Joel Jin (JJ): What strikes me in both Munyi’s and Dave’s reflections is how much the conditions of gratitude matter — not just its presence or absence, but whether the ground is safe enough for it to grow. This feels especially important when we consider chronic pain.
In my clinical work, I have come to understand that a significant category of chronic pain, what researchers now call neuroplastic or centralized pain, is not a fabrication of the mind. The pain is completely real. What differs is its origin: rather than ongoing structural damage to the body, the source is a nervous system that has learned to produce pain as a protective danger signal. The brain, shaped by prolonged stress, emotional suppression, and experiences of unsafety, becomes overprotective, continuing to broadcast an alarm even when the original threat has passed.
What is remarkable, and what the latest pain neuroscience confirms, is that this kind of pain can actually be unlearned. When people feel genuinely safe, when suppressed emotions like anger or grief are expressed rather than held, when the nervous system receives consistent signals that the danger has passed, the pain itself can diminish and, in many cases, resolve entirely.
This is where Munyi’s emphasis on relational safety and Dave’s insight about freedom converge for me clinically: healing from chronic pain is not primarily a matter of willpower or positive thinking. It requires an environment, relational, emotional, and sometimes spiritual, in which one’s body finally believes it is safe to stop protecting itself.
Gratitude, in this light, is not a tool we use to manage suffering. It may be one of the signs that the suffering has genuinely begun to lift.
DW: I love Joel’s conclusion that healing from challenges like chronic pain is not primarily a matter of willpower or positive thinking, but it also requires an environmental, relational, emotional, and sometimes spiritual context in which the body finally believes it is safe to stop protecting itself. Speaking as a trauma psychologist now (as opposed to more as a pastor in my previous comment), this reminds me of psychoanalyst Robert Stolorow’s description of trauma as “severe emotional pain [that] cannot find a relational home in which it can be held.”2 A substantial body of empirical research has identified social support (in its positive and negative forms) as a crucial predictor or even determinant of one’s recovery trajectory post-trauma, which further underscores Joel’s point concerning the importance of the larger emotional-relational environment that can either support or hinder one’s recovery, that can signal to the body that it is finally safe to stop protecting itself. And that’s one of the reasons why I care so deeply about mobilizing and equipping churches for the ministry of presence to those of us who struggle with mental health or conditions like chronic pain. In my own life, I have found Christ to be the wounded healer who was the relational home for my pain. And my hope is that Christian communities can embody Christ’s character and do the same.
MS: Dave’s point that “practicing gratitude as a spiritual discipline cannot be an individual endeavor” is especially compelling. It highlights the fundamentally relational nature of gratitude and calls our attention to the conditions that facilitate or hinder it, as Joel so thoughtfully articulated. Gratitude is relationally conditioned and context-dependent.
This leads to an important implication: cultivating relational safety and trust is not incidental. It requires a set of interpersonal capacities and postures, such as kindness, humility, and social intelligence. It also requires awareness of our assumptions, particularly the tendency to interpret why someone can or cannot access or express gratitude. In some contexts, inviting clients or patients to engage in gratitude practices may not only be ineffective, but may be premature or even presumptuous if the conditions for safety have not yet been established.
At the same time, while relational safety is essential, it is not sufficient. I would invite us to consider the broader social structures and power hierarchies that shape whether gratitude is possible and accessible. Who has the psychological, social, and material space to experience gratitude? Who does not? How might we advocate for those whose safety and dignity are constrained? How do we amplify the voices of those whose voices are often minimized or silenced?
I am not suggesting that people in difficult or unjust conditions cannot experience or express gratitude. Rather, whether we contextualize or decontextualize gratitude can shape how we understand what gratitude (and gratitude practices) should look like. Returning to Dave’s point about the role of Christian communities in embodying Christ’s character, the broader question for churches and other institutions alike is not only how we teach gratitude, but also how we help build communities and a society in which people can access it.
JJ: I’m glad Dave mentioned the work of Robert Stolorow, because I find myself returning often to his metaphor of the “relational home.” Psychological healing requires a safe and nurturing relational home.
Munyi helpfully expands this psychological framing by situating suffering and healing within a broader cultural and structural context. In that sense, relational homes are always embedded within relational neighborhoods. And sometimes those neighborhoods are unsafe, unwelcoming, or under-resourced. At times, even the physical environments themselves are ill-equipped to support the flourishing of individuals, families, and relationships.
This brings to mind Martin Luther King Jr.’s address to the American Psychological Association, where he urged social scientists to resist complacency: there are injustices in society to which we must remain maladjusted if we are to be people of goodwill.3 His vision of “creative maladjustment” feels especially relevant here.
If that is true, then perhaps part of our task is to reconsider emotions like anger—not as obstacles to gratitude, but as companions to it. Anger at injustice can be a moral and relational signal, one that propels us toward advocacy and collective transformation. In that sense, we might even say there is a kind of gratitude for anger, not because injustice is good, but because anger can move us to participate in the work of repair that makes gratitude more accessible to others.
The call for Christian communities, then, may be this: can we practice a form of gratitude that does not turn away from the pain of the Other, but instead makes room for it? Can we become communities that welcome suffering as well as joy, and in doing so, participate in restoring the relational homes and neighborhoods that make healing and even gratitude possible?
- Ronald Rolheiser, “Gratitude the basic virtue,” RonRolheiser, OMI, May 25, 1992. https://ronrolheiser.com/gratitude-the-basic-virtue/#.Y4QOeOzMKjA ↩︎
- Robert D. Stolorow, World, Affectivity, Trauma: Heidegger and Post-Cartesian Psychoanalysis (New York: Routledge, 2011), 27. ↩︎
- Martin Luther King Jr., “The Role of the Behavioral Scientist in the Civil Rights Movement.” Journal of Social Issues, 24 no. 1 (1968): 1-12.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4560.1968.tb01465.x ↩︎
