Stress and Disaster

Abstract

(from the chapter) address several issues about the nature of the stress of disaster / examine the demands and consequences of dealing with the immediate threat and loss and the prolonged social disruption / [discuss] the need for valid measure of the intensity of exposure to the disaster / [suggest] there is a need to examine the stress of disaster from a longitudinal perspective, beginning before the event / the nature of the internal psychological process in the trauma response will be described / the setting of disaster and trauma provides a meeting of the inner and external worlds that makes it such a fruitful area of investigation and one of fascination for clinicians and researchers alike / it is an area where those who are interested in the workings of the mind can also be involved in the struggle against external threat /// the individual's sense of safety and capacity to relate to family and friends can be severely disrupted / the disaster can lead to a sense of constant threat where the individual's sense of reality is changed to a state of continuing vulnerability and over reaction to minor threats / it can be the scars of trauma, the development of a posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) which can be the critical consequence of the disaster (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2005 APA, all rights reserved)