Description
Book SynopsisDisaster Psychiatry: Intervening When Nightmares Come True captures 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 conte
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"Disaster Psychiatry provides a unique opportunity to witness psychiatrists using a range of skills to help others in nontraditional and flexible ways. The experience of contending with one's own feelings in the midst of staggering crisis and of simultaneously drawing on one's therapeutic skills to provide help in radically unfamiliar settings -- this is the stuff of remarkable stories. In the end, the basic talent of the psychiatrists who tell these stories, their humanity, and their compassionate creativity in devising ways to help disaster victims make for compelling presentations. This book will be an invaluable learning experience for all mental health professionals willing to embrace the enormous challenges of helping others at those critical moments 'when nightmares come true."
- Herbert Pardes, M.D., President and Chief Executive Officer, New York-Presybterian Medical Centers
"This volume is an invaluable tutorial in disaster psychiatry that should be required reading for all psychiatrists. Remarkably, most psychiatrists have had little formal training in disaster work. Drawing valuably on their unique experiences in New York, Pandya and Katz have assembled a moving selection of firsthand experiences, interwoven with authoritative information about how psychiatrists can help when disaster strikes."
- John M. Oldham, M.D., Professor and Chairman, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Medical University of South Caroline
Table of ContentsPandya, Katz, Introduction. Part I: September 11, 2001.Sickinger, A Woman Named Katherine. Napoli, Life at the Pile. Merlino, The Other Ground Zero. Jones, September 11 in the ER: Brief Disaster Intervention and Compassion Stress. Part II: Disaster Psychiatrists in Training.Bath, Defining the Psychiatrist's Role with Heroes and Tragedies. Graham, You Are Alive: Hope and Help After September 11, 2001. Finkel, Professional and Personal Reactions to September 11, 2001. Part III: International Perspectives.Raphael, Outreach in Australian Disasters. Cohen, Disaster Psychiatry Throughout the Americas. Raasoch, All They Can Do Is Kill Me: Psychiatry in the Gaza Strip. DeLisi, The Acute Aftermath of an Earthquake in El Salvador. Shah, Earthquake in Gujarat, India: The Influence of Culture and Resources on Coping with a Natural Disaster. Dembert, Occupational Psychiatry, Community Psychiatry, and Cultural Considerations in an Aviation Disaster. Edwards, Becoming a Disaster Psychiatrist in Turkey. Part IV: Child and Adolescent Disaster Psychiatry.Kessler, Awakening Creativity in the Wake of Disaster: A Psychiatrist's Journey with the People of El Salvador. Heath, The World Trade Center Disaster and the Setting Up of Kid's Corner. Tompsett, Working with Fatherless Children After September 11, 2001. Part V: Other U.S. Disaters.Rosen, Debriefings in Kansas and Oklahoma. Lindy, Upheaval of the Stars: From Happy Land to the World Trade Center. Meyerson, Vietnam and the World Trade Center: One Psychiatrist's View of Defining Disaster and Working with Its Victims.
