COMMUNITIES CARING for COMMUNITIES
WHEN DISASTER STRIKES
by Susan Bodnar
The worshipers walked out to a blue sky and a fresh cool breeze. The service
had been helpful. They saw that their friends were safe. They congratulated
the heroic efforts of the rescue workers. They wept as they recounted
the names of those who were missing. Two of those missing faces smiled
eerily from the posters hanging on the community bulletin board. They
hugged Issac who worked on the 60th floor of tower two and embraced
David who had been destined for San Francisco from Newark - one flight
later than the San Francisco bound plane that crashed in Pennsylvania.
It seemed as though everything was back together again. The healing
process could begin.
Just then a policeman started screaming, "Get back, get back!" He forcefully
ushered the pedestrians away as police cars converged on the corner.
Sirens whined in the distance. "Suspicious package," he screamed, "suspicious
package." Things weren't really coming back together again after all.
When life has been inexorably altered, the pain is not metabolized in
a conversation. The healing occurs over the course of a lifetime.
As families around the world faced the death of loved ones, communities everywhere
face the death of a dream. There are no boundaries anymore. Turning
a community's infrastructure against itself in an act of violent destruction
demolishes the concept of safety. Consider the images that we witnessed.
Someone just like anyone you knew they were dying and said goodbye to
a mother or spouse on their cell phone. Others took their last breath
without even knowing it. A national monument collapsed into rubble.
People tumbled high in the sky. Children in daycare screamed for mothers
who may never be found. People covered in ash walked like mummies from
behind walls of smoke.
This type of destruction causes a severe and short-term split in consciousness.
People react to trauma by organizing around two polar extremes: a need
to be active or an almost hypnotic paralysis. While some people will
feel depressed, sad, and lethargic and irritable, others will be bringing
flowers to the local firehouse and delivering supplies to the rescue
workers. On one corner a group of people will sing "God Bless America"
by candlelight, tears streaming down their faces. On another corner
a man wears a sign around his neck, "Dana will you marry me?" (She said
yes.) Funerals are being prepared. Restaurants are open for business.
The financial industry is back to work. Yet business card after business
card lie discarded in a pile of rumble where two majestic towers once
stood.
Overtime, denial will set in and balance will recur. There will be less energy
to act and, conversely, less lethargic depression. The human psyche
will create the illusion that this event was somehow manageable, that
it wasn't so bad. People will feel relief that ONLY 6,000 people may
have perished. This denial is a necessary and important aspect of recovery.
If people couldn't create distance between themselves and the event
they would be too overwhelmed to begin rebuilding. Denial enables people
to stabilize and structure their lives. People will stock their refrigerators,
protect their homes, return to work and remain close to family members
and loved ones. They express sadness and mourning in communal situations.
They may shy away from meetings set up with mental health workers. Many
people, even those who have been closely impacted, will find it nearly
impossible to fully integrate what has happened. Most will attempt to
behave as if everything is okay.
This doesn't mean that things are okay for an individual or a community. People's
first concern is to replace the structure and stability of their lives.
Only when they feel relatively safe from another attack will people
have the energy and psychic tolerance for the deeper healing. A terrorist
assault cannot be processed in the moment. It takes, a year, or years,
of living in the world to usefully heal from its impact.
A terrorist violates communities by randomly attacking large numbers of community
members. Many scarred individuals create a devastated community. Once
a community has re-established its semblance of normality, it must initiate
strategies to effectively contain and cope with the long-term effects
of trauma. Subsequent to a terrorist attack people go on living in the
world when their communities adopt care-taking strategies as part of
their organizational life. Research demonstrates that relationships
are the single most important factor in long-term survival and adaptation
to tragedy and trauma. Rather than relying on experts to solve the emotional
difficulties of their members, community leaders should utilize consultants
who can help set up care-taking networks within their communities. These
networks should strengthen the already existing connections between
teachers and students, boss and employee, colleague and colleague. People
heal best with the people they know.
Furthermore, terrorist attacks are meant to render a community helpless. Attacks
are designed to violate, humiliate, disgrace and destroy the body and
the soul. The terrorist's evil defiles the boundaries of humanity and
degrades the individual life. Terrorism executes the human spirit. If
healing becomes too dependent upon "the expert" then the victims remain
passive. Neither the individual nor the community can be regenerated
from a position of helplessness. Recovery means following a call to
actively live life. It is the actions of goodness that rebuild, heal
and reinvigorate the human and communal soul.
As the days, weeks, months and year go by leaders in businesses, schools,
families, and civic and religious organizations face the task of recovery
for individuals and for their community in what will be an uncertain
world. There may be retaliations or prolonged exposure to other forms
of violence. People's memories of their individual terror will leap
out and grab them when they sleep, hear an airplane in the sky, or smell
burning embers. The following four articles include a ten-step care-taking
guide for leaders in different types of groups (family, school, business,
and family). Each step describes actions of human kindness that strengthen
the goodness and sanctity of human life.
Susan Bodnar, Ph.D. is a New York City
clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst with anthropological training.
She has collaborated with groups that have experienced trauma to support
the development of care-taking initiatives within their own communities.
She is now in private practice.
09/24/01
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