European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - December 17, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 16 the stars and stripes tuesday december 17, 1985 emotional Impact of disaster losing the sense of a benign world by Daniel Goleman new York times in a catastrophe like the mexican earthquake and the mudslides in Colombia exports say he psychological world collapses justas resoundingly As the physical one. The most prominent psychological casualty is the sense of invulnerability with which most people manage to face the risks of daily Lite. Also shattered psychologists Are finding is a person s sense that his or her world is comprehensible and has meaning. For Many years after he trauma a person s very sense of Worth May be damaged. To � common Bill of that people recover after a few weeks from disaster is based on mistaking denial Tor recovery said or. Mardi Horowitz psychiatrist at the University of California medical school at san Francisco. Horowitz s research has shown that Many psychological symptoms do not appear until Long alter the victim seems to have fully recovered from the disaster. When the problems do arise such As difficulty concentrating depression or sleeplessness their causes May go unrecognized. The study of the psychological Impact of trauma of All sorts has become a major topic for researchers. While psychoanalytic theories have dealt in the main with the devastating effects of emotional trauma in Early childhood tha new work examines the emotional aftershocks of disasters o every sort. As psychologists and psychiatrists assess the Impact of catastrophes they Are finding that the worst natural disaster holds something in common in its psychic Impact with what May seem a minor crisis such As witnessing a brutal Prkna. And they find for example that children come to grips with disaster in ways that Are very different from those of adults. Moreover the evidence is that rescuers and even bystanders also can be vulnerable to  costs. Whenever someone becomes victimized by a disaster whatever its nature said Ronnie Janoff Bulman a psychologist at the University of Massachusetts their most Basic assumptions about themselves and the world Are undermined. Psychological recovery to a Large extent requires rebuilding those  the a sumption that crumbles in a disaster according to Janoff Bulman is that of invulnerability the sense that the world is benevolent controllable and Lair and that so Long As one acts As one should nothing untoward will happen. The Assumption of invulnerability begins very Early in we As Early As the first two or three years of  Janoff Bucknan said in an interview. That is when the child terms a sense of Basic Trust the meeting thai foe world is a predictable place m which Good things will come to you. And from that the child comes to see himself As worthy of that kind of care. These beliefs Are at the Core of a person s most Basic sense of himself and the world. A catastrophe attacks those deeply held beliefs Jan Oft Bulman said. Suddenly All the world seems malevolent. And because the two beliefs Are so intimately linked you lose not Only your sense that the world is Safe Lor you but that you Are worthy of that  people who have suffered catastrophes afterwards May undergo a diminished sense of self Worth for 10 or 15 years or even longer. Janol Bulman found in her research when you be been victimized she said it leads you to ask Why me you May Start looking at yourself to find something in you to blame it on. To justify and make Somo sense out of such a horrible Fate. That leads you to highlight the negative aspects of yourself which Lowers your  some research Sugg twi that the More benevolent a person had assumed the setting of a disaster to be the worse to psychological Impact can be. A study at the University of Illinois found that women who had been raped in settings they once though were Safe were More Lear Lul in general afterwards than were women who had been raped in dangerous settings. Children vary in Fher reactions depending on their age. According to research by two psychiatrists. Or. Robert Pynoos of the University of California at los Angeles and or. Spencer eth of the University o1 Southern California. They have studied children who witnessed brutal crimes. The severest Impact is on the youngest children those of preschool age. They feel the most helpless and passive when Normal response j  to Juoma through lacing Tow reality of what Haa happened Normal psychological recovery irom mutter May include pert Odiot denial preoccupation with the event and other dil Facun Reg Xum but it eventually Lead to resumption of Normal me. When various Atadea of the pro Cess go awry however they can Lead to Mere disturbance. Confronted by overwhelming danger and require the most assistance to re establish psychic equilibrium Pynoos and eth wrote in an article in trauma and its Wake Bruner Mazel. Young children in severe danger often react by a mute stun next withdrawal one 3-year-old sat next to her murdered Mother Tor eight hours unit a Roommate discovered them. After the disaster has passed preschool age children often regress acting like an anxious younger child whining clinging or throwing tantrums. Children at this age ate most Likely to dwell on the fantasy that the tragedy has not occurred and that everything is magically All right. Children of achoo age on the other hand have a much broader repertoire of responses. Some children at this age will spend an inordinate time retelling the traumatic incident in detail but with a Lack of Erno Tion. Others will become fixated in a state of constant guarded Ness As though braced for danger at any moment. Aware of the  of death they Are less prone than the younger child to dwell incessantly on the fantasy that a dead loved one will return. But children of this age will often re enact the tragedy in fantasy imagining themselves As having rescued the victim according to Pynoos and eth. Teen agers they write tend to resemble adults in reacting to disaster. One common reaction is a premature Entrance to adulthood a false sense of readiness to take on adult responsibilities. Teen agers Are also prone to respond with rebelliousness such As truancy and sexual adventures All out of keeping with their personality before the trauma. Pynoos and eth note the it teenagers Are much More realistic in their understanding of the event Liseh than Are the younger children who sometimes blame themselves for the disaster. Teen agers on the other hand while they can accurately assess How Little their own acts May have figured into the Chain of events May still inflate their guilt feelings at having survived As Many adults do. Such variations in the Impact of disaster must be seen against the broader background of the Normal progression of psychological responses which have been recognized Lor centuries. When the diarist Samuel Pepys described his reactions to the great fire of London which destroyed much of the City in 1666. His account followed what psychologists have come to see As a classic pattern disbelief followed by a forgetfulness of the disaster. Insomnia disturbing dreams and extreme anxiety. Similar symptoms Are commonly observed among the Shell Shock victims of wars. The pattern now called the Post traumatic stress syndrome includes recurrent dreams of the trauma tic event the numbing of emotions and guilt about having survived when others have not