have difficulty in solving.” It is important for therapists to monitor mental health and ensure that survivors receive long term professional services if necessary. Sathyanarayana Rao (2004) states “Following the overwhelming catastrophic exposure, the initial reactions include confusion, disorganization and emotional numbness. Psychological first aid emphasizes mental health roles during and shortly after the impact phase and is distinct from traditional mental health interventions. It does not deal with chronic, long term or intrapsychic problems. Instead, there is a focus on ‘here and now’ enhancing current functioning and providing adequate support to prevent further trauma.” There are however, certain characteristics that therapists should …show more content…
This may not be an easy task, but will help to prevent burnout, which often results in the inability for therapists to effectively cope with the disaster themselves. Since emergency relief work is stressful, it is important to keep a close watch on one’s own mental health. Providers should take regular breaks, eat healthy, and make personal hygiene a priority. Providers also need to make sure they continue with their normal daily routines, if possible and develop a support system, such as family and friends back home. Relief teams can be a great source of support for each other as well, since team members can assist other team members in maintaining mental and physical health. Providers who take care of themselves are better able to assist others who are affected by the disaster. They also need to establish their own limits, both mentally and physically and work within them. This will help to promote optimal health while helping …show more content…
While there are horrifying events that take place during a disaster, emergency relief teams are vital to the mental health and recovery of those affected following the tragedy. Not only are emergency relief operations beneficial to the victims in recovery, but they also help communities rebuild and sustain recovery as well. One way that emergency relief teams help, is by educating the victims about such disasters and preparing for any future tragedies. Preparedness, resilience, and sustainability are all important factors in the recovery process. More importantly, therapists are often focused on helping victims normalize their emotions and experiences, while also helping them to find a sense of hope throughout such despair. While natural disasters are unavoidable, it is pertinent for communities to become more engaged, offer disaster relief and preparedness education, and understand how strong resilience and coping skills benefit individuals in the face of adversity. To reduce the negative effects of disasters in the future, it is important to gain an understanding of how communities are effected, both physically and emotionally, and to identify appropriate services necessary for
middle of paper ... ... The. “Hurricane Andrew: The Human Side of Recovery.” Disaster Recovery Journal, System Support Inc. 1 Sept. 2001. Web.
I have gained great insight into the roles of services that help people going through a crisis. I work as part of primary working team and my role is to help the primary worker and the associate worker in coming up with a treatment plan for our allocated patient. I regularly attend multi-disciplinary care review meetings where we decide and carry out present care needs, plans, and wishes and identify future input and support, goals and any desired future outcomes for our service users. I work with the other members of staff and outside agencies to promote empowerment, individuality, rights as enshrined by the law, personal responsibilities, self-identity and self-esteem. I work as part of a team including an occupational therapist that puts care plans and assessments into action to help people with basic life skills.
Emergency Management has always been an important role in government, communities, and some organizations when dealing with planning and response to emergencies and disasters. However, since the September 11th attacks and other terrorist attacks on United States soil such as the Oklahoma City bombing, or the Boston terror attack, emergency management now has a more active and upfront role. Planning for terrorist attacks is no longer if but when.
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and acute stress disorder (ASD) are two stress disorders that occur after a traumatizing experience. PTSD is defined as a disorder that follows a distressing event outside the range of normal human experience and that is characterized by features such as intense fear, avoidance of stimuli associated with the event, and reliving the event. Acute stress disorder is defined as a disorder that is characterized by feelings of anxiety and helplessness and caused by a traumatic event. It also usually occurs within a month of the event and lasts from 2 days to 4 weeks. Dealing with experiences like the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 and the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks in 2001 were difficult for people and easily classified as traumatizing experiences. For times like these when a large number of people experience a traumatizing experience and will probably develop PTSD or ASD, there is no precedent for how to treat them. The only tool that can be used at these times is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), to classify the disorder. No real solution exists for a treatment process for an incident of this scale. The three journal articles I will be using show statistical data about how people dealt with these experiences and what percent of them developed PTSD or ASD. They also show how many people showed signs of these disorders but never contacted a professional to help treat it. Even as far away as Brussels, expatriates of the United States felt the effects of the attacks of September 11th.
This essay will discuss the quality of resilience, it critical elements, and its effects; assessing its effectiveness in promoting reasonable and sincere responses to psychological and physical trauma. The first section of this essay will inspect and define the concept of resilience, showing its place in the realm of general health care while maintaining its individuality as a characteristic of personal psychological well being. The following section will dictate the risk and protective factors both innate and imposed that encourage or prevent a resilient character arising as a result of physical or psychological trauma. The final section of this essay will explain the components of resilience that influence health care workers and patients,
Advantages include clients feeling less isolated, making social contact, seeing others who have similar crisis like theirs so that they would feel more comfortable opening up about their crisis. Another advantage in crisis intervention, is the psychoeducational component. It does not only describe possible reactions to trauma but also includes the cognitive behavioural approach for symptom management. Timely access to crisis intervention has shown to reduce the need of hospitalisation. (Guo, Biegel, Johnsen & Dyches, 2001) The biggest strength of Roberts’ model provides a quick assessment to determine the need for improvement of coping plans. Through these coping plans, we can develop the intervention and it may not be applicable to all cases or identification of the need for further plans is important. Another strength of Roberts’ model is its extend beyond lethality. (Shadone, 2011) The limitations of crisis intervention are an inability to focus about one client’s problem and the suggestions of maladaptive or destructive coping methods by group members. The emergency services uses crisis intervention techniques in order to provide a psychological debriefing to responders of critical incidents. Another limitation would be the inability to reduce symptoms of PTSD and the possibility of vicarious traumatization of the clients. It appears likely that iatrogenic effects might result from
When people experience a traumatic event it normally will have an impact on every facet of their being. God created us as triune being made of a body, soul (mind, will, and emotions). Crisis immediately impacts a person physically, cognitively, and emotionally. After some time has passed you can expect to see symptoms of the effects of the critical incident in relationships horizontally with family and friends; as well as the person’s vertical relationship with God. It is critical in crisis intervention that all three parts of a person be assessed and cared for appropriately to aid victims of crisis in healing from the critical incident.
The weight of constantly listening to difficult, harrowing, and upsetting events in other people’s lives can have negative impacts on therapists, especially for those who are inadequately trained or who have poor coping mechanisms. While most therapists deal with this strain, it is particularly true of those who work consistently work with patients who have experienced trauma. Trauma refers to an individual's exposure to actual or threatened harm, fear of death or injury, or witnessing violence. Common forms of trauma seen in therapy environments are rape, abuse, victims of crimes, accidents, and disasters. Trauma work requires specialized training and support in order to be effective for the clients and to help to deal with, minimize, and
The term “Psychological trauma” refers to damage wrought from a traumatic event, which that damages one’s ability to cope with stressors. “Trauma” is commonly defined as an exposure to a situation in which a person is confronted with an event that involves actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to self or others’ physical well-being (American Psychiatric Association, 2000). Specific types of client trauma frequently encountered by which therapists and other mental health workers frequently encounter in a clinical setting include sexual abuse, physical , or sexual assault, natural disasters such as earthquakes or tsunamis, domestic violence, and school or/and work related violence (James & Gilliland, 2001). Traumatic events tend to overwhelm the ordinary human adaptations to life. The severity of traumatic events cannot be measured in on any single dimension; the primary characteristic of the traumatic event is its power to inspire helplessness and terror. It is also important to realize that a survivor’s experience of the traumatic event is a subjective experience of the objective event. Trauma itself may come in several forms, and there are vast differences among people who experience trauma and the types of reactions trauma elicits in them.
A person will think that the decisions that everyone around him makes will be his demise and he will abandon others in order to keep himself alive. After losing all family and friends, a person will put up a wall and become numb to his surroundings. In order to help someone else survive, people must be able to survive themselves (Grossman). Persons with PTSD will cope after the chaos of the apocalypse by considering their environment and making adjustments to fit in. Exploring thoughts and feelings about the trauma is the next step in self- healing and also working through feelings of guilt, self-blame, and mistrust. After getting connected with others, challenging one’s sense of helplessness and concentrating on the strengths a person has will bring that person back to reality, and life begins again (Smith and
For individuals that have experienced this disturbing event, the effects can be described in terms of different phases in which they go through. During the impact phase, which occurs immediately after the attack, the victim tends to fall apart inside. They often experience shock, which has a sudden and powerful effect on emotions and physical reactions, or denial, which is a state of mind marked by a refusal or inability to recognize and deal with what has occurred (Bard and Sangrey, 1979, pg. 34). When the victim is in shock they often ask themselves “why me?” When going through denial, the victim may have an inability to accept what has happened and they are unsure if the event has really occurred. Sometimes victims in this phase may feel “numb and disorganized”(Bard and Sangrey, 1979, pg. 34). When the victim feels numb, they often experience a detachment from their lives and have a sense that they are separate from the ongoing world around them. D...
In an adverse situation resilience is the key characteristic that allows people to pull through and even thrive despite risks. Resilience is characterised as the ability to bounce back, recover quickly, or the ability to work well and adapt under pressure (Hoppes, 2011). This essay will outline the different forms of resilience required to cope with trauma resulting from physical injury or an event that causes psychological strain. It will also discuss some of the risk and protective factors that contribute to resilience for health professionals and patients.
A disaster is not a simple emergency. A disaster is that point when a human is suffering and has a devastating situation which they themselves need help from others to survive. Regardless if natural or human caused, a disaster causes a vast amount of issues in the community. In the simulation of “Disaster in Franklin County reveals that preparation is key and even with that more can be addressed. A community nurse remains an essential part of the team involved in a disaster including before, during, and after the event.
The purpose of this CERT IS-317 course was to prepare individuals not part of the professional disasters relief field to help in the event of a disaster. These everyday individuals become part of a team that can aid in preparing their families, neighbors, and coworkers for the threat of a disaster. CERT program participants become familiar with disaster preparedness, fire safety, hazardous chemical awareness, disaster medical operations, terroristic threats, and search and rescue procedures. Following the completion of this course and along with hands-on class room course experience the CERT participants will be valuable aids to professionals during a disaster (CERT Training Manual, 2011).
Of the four phases of emergency management, mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery, perhaps the place that individuals can make the biggest difference in their own state of resiliency and survival of a disaster is in the preparedness phase. Being prepared before a disaster strikes makes sense yet many people fail to take even simple, precautionary steps to reduce the consequences of destruction and mayhem produced by natural events such as earthquakes, volcanos and tornados (see Paton et al, 2001, Mileti and Peek, 2002; Tierney, 1993, Tierney et al, 2001).