How to help after national catastrophes: Findings following 9/11.

Abstract

This article found elevated levels of trauma symptoms related to the terrorist attacks of 9/11 in students at a university in Northern California. In an analogue comparison, the impact on trauma symptoms of 2 interventions-journal writing and story listening-was examined. College students were randomly assigned to write about their emotional reactions to 9/11 or to listen to stories evoking themes relevant to the national tragedy. Participants in both conditions reported significant improvements in trauma symptoms on the final day of each condition. Students with prior bereavement had greater improvements in trauma symptoms on 1 measure in the story listening condition. The implications of these findings for the use of exposure-based interventions in the treatment of trauma are discussed.In the face of the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, mental health professionals ask themselves: "What can I do?" Psychologists can help their local community by

Learning principles of evolution during a crisis: An exploratory analysis of student barriers one week and one month into the COVID‐19 pandemic

“…In the last decade, college students have dealt with tragedies or disasters on national, local, and individual levels. These incidences have strong emotional and cognitive impacts on students-even those who are not directly affected (Honos-Webb, Sunwolf, Hart, & Scalise, 2006). Examples include natural disasters such as Hurricane Maria, mass shootings (e.g.…”

The Role of a Sense of Coherence In The Prevention of Compassion Fatigue

“…This correlates with findings in the literature that a well developed sense of meaning and purpose provides a layer of protection against compassion fatigue (Friedman, 2005;Honos-Webb et al, 2006;Rasmussen, 2005;Teyber, 2006) because humanistic and transpersonal orientations place greater emphasis on existential meaning.…”

“…Frankl"s time, others have built models of resilience to and recovery from psychological distress and built on an awareness of compassion, meaning and purpose (Almedom, 2005;Anadarajah & Hight, 2001;Antonovsky, 1987Antonovsky, , 1996Bryant-Davis, 2005;Friedman, 2005;Grauf-Grounds & Edwards, 2007;Harvey, 1996;Harvey & Tummala-Narra, 2007;Hernández et al, 2010;Honos-Webb, Hart, & Scalise, 2006;Linley & Joseph, 2007;Pallant & Lae, 2002;Pietrzak, Johnson, Goldstein, Malley, & Southwick, 2009;Raingruber & Kent, 2003;Sagy & Antonovsky, 2000). Linley et al (2005) life"s meaning (Almedom, 2005;Frankl, 1959Frankl, /1992Harrison & Westwood, 2009;Hernández et al, 2010;Nelson, 2010;Pietrzak et al, 2009 (Almedom, 2005;Hernández et al, 2010;Hernández et al, 2007;Ortlepp & Friedman, 2001).…”

“…A developed sense of meaning in life has been identified as a protective factor against PTSD (Dutton & Rubinstein, 1995;Honos-Webb et al, 2006, Owens et al, 2009Rasmussin, 2005). These studies support the hypothesis contained in this current study that a sense of coherence, which includes a strong component of meaning, might play a mitigating role in the prevention of compassion fatigue, where compassion fatigue is viewed as a form of PTSD and a sense of coherence is understood to be primarily based upon the importance of meaningfulness…”

In the wake of the Wenchuan earthquake: the function of story-sharing in rebuilding communities in the quake disaster zone

“…Based on a survey research on 511 participants following 9/11, MacGeorge, Samter, Feng, Gillihan, and Graves (2007) found that emotional support received from interaction with others had a main effect on terrorism-related depression and was associated with less depression. An experimental study by Honos-Webb, Sunwolf, Hart, and Scalise (2006) also found that both journal writing and story-listening relieved participants' trauma symptoms after 9/11.…”