Psychology and disaster

Essay by pepitoB, April 2007

download word file, 6 pages 3.0

Over the last decade, disasters often happen throughout the world such as tsunami, earthquake, hurricanes, and landslide. As a psychologist, the center priority is to mollify the painful range of emotions and physical responses experienced by the survivors. Creating and sustaining an environment of safety, calm, empowerment, hope, and connectedness to others are important in terms of helping to recover the condition. These situations can be reflected by looking at some of the issues and the treatment that psychologists do. This essay will discuss some of the issues that psychologists may need to address to help alleviate human suffering and assist survivor recovery following a disaster, as well as the treatment strategies employed by psychologist to facilitate recovery.

To begin with, confrontation with death is the toughest issue that leads to severe depression because survivors are faced by death of the loved ones and human society. It may happen when survivors and rescue workers start to investigate and rescue the place of disaster.

Confrontation with death may also bring tremendous impact with an anxious vulnerability related to childhood experience of trauma and difficulties to control the emotion (Raphael & Wilson, 1994).

Secondly, survivors may suffer severe anxiety regarding to post disaster. This reaction may be shown by debilitating worry, fearful, nervousness, and compulsions (National Center for PTSD, 2006a). If it is not tackled seriously by psychologists, it will lead to greater problems such as using alcohol and drugs to cope the problem, social isolation, avoidance of talking and thinking about the disaster, becoming workaholic, and anger (National Center for PTSD, 2006b). One of the reasons that some survivors may feel anxious is death because another disaster would come to destroy. In addition, some of the survivors are seriously ill which makes them appreciate their life more. It leads them to...