Disaster Psychiatry: Intervening When Nightmares Come True

by Pandya; Anand A.

• ISBN13: 9780881634181
• ISBN10: 0881634182
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2004-04-21
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Disaster Psychiatry: Intervening When Nightmares Come Truecaptures the state of disaster psychiatry in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. This emergent psychiatric specialty, which is increasingly separated from trauma and grief psychiatry on one hand and military psychiatry on the other, provides psychotherapeutic assistance to victims during, and in the weeks and months following, major disasters. As such, disaster psychiatrists must operate in the widely varying locales in which natural and man-made disasters occur, and they must establish their role among the chaotic array of organizations involved in direct disaster response. Editors Anand Pandya and Craig Katz have captured the challenge and promise of disaster psychiatry through first-person narratives. We hear from psychiatrists who have encountered disasters at various stages of their career and in widely varying social, political, and personal contexts. Accounts of psychiatric involvement with adults and children during and after 9/11 have understandable pride of place in this collection. But they are balanced by richly informative narratives about other domestic and international disasters. Fraught with the drama attendant to the events they describe, these essays delineate the dizzying array of challenges that confront the disaster psychiatrist. They range from the intense emotional responses that are part of the aftermath of any disaster, to the need to legitimize a psychiatric presence within diverse cultural and medical contexts, to the subtle task of providing therapeutic boundaries at a time when all rules seem to be suspended. Special attention is given to the daunting task of working with children whose parents' are disaster victims. What emerges from these testimonies is compelling documentation of skilled and compassionate psychiatrists at the outer limits of their specialty, pursuing their calling into uncharted realms of therapeutic engagement.

Table of Contents

Foreword
Robert Coles	xi
Introduction
Anand A. Pandya and Craig L. Katz	xv
Section I. September 11, 2001	1	(52)
1 A Woman Named Katherine	3	(14)
Claudia T. Sickinger
2 Life at the Pile	17	(14)
Joseph C. Napoli
3 The Other Ground Zero	31	(6)
Joseph P. Merlino
4 September 11 in the ER: Brief Disaster Intervention and Compassion Stress	37	(18)
Kristina Jones
Section II. Disaster Psychiatrists in Training	53	(32)
5 Defining the Psychiatrist's Role with Heroes and Tragedies	55	(12)
Eraka Bath
6 You Are Alive: Hope and Help After September 11, 2001	67	(8)
Diana R. Graham
7 Professional and Personal Reactions to September 11, 2001	75	(12)
Jennifer M. Finkel
Section III. International Perspectives	85	(102)
8 Outreach in Australian Disasters	87	(16)
Beverley Raphael
9 Disaster Psychiatry Throughout the Americas	103	(12)
Raquel E. Cohen
10 All They Can Do Is Kill Me: Psychiatry in the Gaza Strip	115	(18)
John W. Raasoch
11 The Acute Aftermath of an Earthquake in El Salvador	133	(8)
Lynn E. DeLisi
12 Earthquake in Gujarat, India: The Influence of Culture and Resources on Coping with a Natural Disaster	141	(18)
Manoj R. Shah
13 Occupational Psychiatry, Community Psychiatry, and Cultural Considerations in an Aviation Disaster	159	(20)
Mark L. Dembert
14 Becoming a Disaster Psychiatrist in Turkey	179	(8)
Pamela J. Edwards
Section IV. Child and Adolescent Disaster Psychiatry	187	(32)
15 Awakening Creativity in the Wake of Disaster: A Psychiatrist's Journey with the People of El Salvador	189	(14)
Carol Luise Kessler
16 The World Trade Center Disaster and the Setting Up of Kids' Corner	203	(8)
Desmond Heath
17 Working with Fatherless Children After September 11, 2001	211	(8)
Margaret E. Tompsett
Section V. Other U.S. Disasters	219	(40)
18 Debriefings in Kansas and Oklahoma	221	(8)
Donald E. Rosen
19 Upheaval of the Stars: From Happy Land to the World Trade Center	229	(20)
David C. Lindy
20 Vietnam and the World Trade Center: 249 One Psychiatrist's View of Defining a Disaster and Working with Its Victims	249	(10)
Arthur T. Meyerson
Contributors	259