Just Like Bodies, Psyches Can Drown in Disasters

[Dover]

Just Like Bodies, Psyches Can Drown in Disasters


By M. LAURIE LEITCH
Published: May 31, 2005

Pairao, a 38-year-old Thai woman with vacant eyes, sits on the dusty floor of her temporary house in a refugee camp for tsunami survivors. Her face is dotted with cuts from debris that struck her as she clung to four family members, all of whom died in the waves. She has been having recurrent nightmares and flashbacks.

I sit with her as she tells how her son had gone to market that fateful day and, therefore, survived. I am there to work with the traumatic stress symptoms of survivors like Pairao. However, my first connection to her is as a mother, and I feel a surge of gratitude that my own children are alive and safe back home.

In the first days of disaster relief work, I wondered how I could possibly make a difference when the magnitude of loss, destruction and trauma was so huge. There is skepticism and hot debate among some experts as to the suitability of Western-based approaches to disaster mental health. I share this skepticism, and I arrived with my own questions about whether there is a place for mental health services in the immediate aftermath of a natural disaster.

My experience with survivors like Pairao convinced me that we need a new science of disaster relief - one that gives immediate aid not just to the body or to the mind but to the two together, as inseparable parts of the whole survivor.

The month I spent working in the Phang Nga Province of Thailand convinced me that we should have arrived sooner. Thai Red Cross personnel, nurses, doctors and Buddhist monks told us how frustrated they were at how little they knew about the symptoms and treatment of trauma.

Our nine-member trauma team's work was done under the auspices of the Princess' Mobile Medical Unit, affording an access and a legitimacy we would not otherwise have had. We worked in medical tents, refugee camps, Buddhist temples and schools, providing treatment and training.

The lack of information about traumatic stress meant that medication was often prescribed in lieu of other treatments. Children and adults had been given major medications for symptoms like night terrors, headaches, weakness in limbs and stomachaches, all symptoms of traumatic stress, which can often be successfully treated without medication, particularly with early intervention. In one case, a woman received an antidepressant for sleep problems and then attempted suicide...cont'd

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/31/health/psychology/31essa.html

[Trillo]

1. As soon as they have a pill that targets selective memories,

there will be another stock-market boom. For those not in disaster recovery, there likely will also be a new data recovery service devised, to capture and record the memories (data) before the pill is administered, which people will be able to buy back later for a handsome fee.

[Eloriel]

2. There is help -- technology -- that she's looking for

Two that I know of. One available only via therapists, and I never can quite remember it's name, but it's about rapid eye movement so perhaps it's Rapid Eye Movement Therapy.

The other available to everyone, but also from consultants and therapists. I've posted the link and posted threads about it here in this forum and Meeting Room in the past. I'll do it one more time. I use this regularly and ought to use it much more often:

Emotional Freedom Technique
http://www.emofree.com/newcomer.htm

Here's the link for the manual since the revision asks you to sign up for the email list in order to get the link for the FREE manual:

Download manual: http://www.emofree.com/eftmanl.pdf


The mailing list is quite interesting, tho, and only comes about once a week or less. Easy to ignore OR unsubscribe from. Other links of interest:
Tutorials: http://www.emofree.com/tutorial.htm
Articles: http://www.emofree.com/art.htm
Case Studies http://www.emofree.com/default.htm#EFT%20at%20work

[loudsue]

3. Quite true, Eloriel: REM (rapid eye movement) and TFT (Thought

Field Therapy....which is the same stuff as the link you provided) affect your neurological pathways in such a way that you can rebalance your psyche as regards a traumatic situation.

My experience is that the affects are not long-lasting, except for the fact that they help you to come back to balance at a critical juncture.

I've been using both techniques since I quit smoking on May 4, and they really help to get me through the "frantic" times of wanting a cigarette. (Of course, I've also been using the patch, exercise, self-talk and drinking tons of water, along with the REM and TFT....but REM and TFT are certainly effective support tools.)

The techniques also work to heal OLD wounds. And I sincerely believe that, if our medical/psychological workers would get together with some of the real innovators in the healing (as opposed to medical) field, we might start healing the planet, and everyone on it, much more quickly and effectively.

These techniques would be a blessing for many of the people who survived the tsunami. They are effective for all different types of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

:kick:

[Dover]

4. Eloriel, are you referring to Eye Movement Desensitization and

Reprocessing (EMDR)?

EMDR is a relatively new treatment for traumatic memories that involves elements of exposure therapy and CBT combined with techniques (eye movements, hand taps, sounds) that create an alternation of attention back and forth across the person's midline. While the theory and research are still evolving for this form of treatment, evidence suggests that it is the exposure and cognitive components of EMDR that make it effective, rather than the attentional alternation.

Seems that treatment of post traumatic stress and other types of psychological 'wounding' requires a very sensitive, intuitive and experienced healer. There is no one treatment that fits the bill for everyone since each experience and individual is so different and complex...which is why holistic care is so critical. But it sure seems to me that the immediacy of body work might be as important as any kind of psychological or medical treatment.
By that I'm speaking of anything from simply being held and stroked, to massage, water therapy, acupuncture, breathwork, etc.

I am reminded of an austic woman (who is a scientist) that discovered through personal experience and intuition, that cattle holding shoots, which are devices that work in a similar way as an armband pump for measuring blood pressure (a bladder that fills with air and gently puts pressure on the body), held her in a way which calmed and soothed her like it did the cattle. I have the sense that it might also be helpful for some kinds of anxiety and panic problems, which are often one of the symptoms of post traumatic stress.

[loudsue]

5. EMDR.....REM.....

Dover, do you live outside of the southern states?

I have a friend in Texas who is a psychologist, and she calls it EMDR, too. The 2 psychologists in North Carolina that are also friends of mine, use the same technique, but they call it REM (just like they call what your eyes do when you are at certain stages of sleep). They also use a tapping at 2 different points like my friend in Texas showed me when she came out to visit. I'm wondering, since Eloriel is in the Atlanta area, if there isn't a regional difference as to what people are calling it.

When I went to read about it, the web sites I found called it EMDR, as well.

Whatever we call it, I highly recommend it! That and Thought Field Therapy are techniques a person can use all on their own, in almost any situation, to reduce anxiety or shift a destructive thought process.

:kick:

[Dover]

.

[Dover]

6. I don't know about the regional thing...I had never heard of EMDR

until I did a google on post traumatic stress and saw it listed as a treatment. It sounds interesting, though I'm not clear on how the procedure is done exactly.

I wonder if this is the same basic thing as NLP (Neuro-linguistic Programming) which suggests that the position of the eyes reveals what part of the brain/memory the person is accessing. That's pretty fascinating too and seems an involuntary (or unconscious) type of eye movement.