European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - January 20, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Psychic scars treating traumatized children by Daniel Goleman new York times kindergarten classmates stand by stunned As a kidnapper snatches a boy irom a line of children waiting to enter their los Angeles school in the morning the next Day the child is found dead. Also in los Angeles a teacher suffers a burst aneurysm and drops to the ground unconscious bleeding from the nose while her first Grade students look on in horror a Man shoots his estranged Wile and rapes two teachers in front of 19 children he holds hostage in a Natchez. Miss elementary school. Near Newburgh by. Seven children Are killed and four critically a ured As a Hurricane Force gust blows in a cafeteria Wall during lunch hour. Such incidents have led to the rapid growth of a grim expertise treating the emotional aftermath in children exposed to acts of violence there is no precise measure of the number of children in the United states who Bear the lingering psychic scars of school related trauma the National school safely Center estimates that there Are 3 million catastrophes or acts of violence in american schools each year. One of the leaders in the emerging Field of treating traumatized children is Spencer eth a psychiatrist at the University of California at los Angeles and medical director of the psychological trauma Center an affiliate of Cedars mount Sinai medical Center in los Angeles which was the first of its kind in the nation eth founded the Center in 1981 so that psychiatrists and others could share their research and experience in helping children recover from trauma. The Center will help school or mental health officials who Are thrust by an act of violence into caring for traumatized boys and girls. There s an enormous need among children for therapy for trauma eth said. It s a problem that is largely unnoticed and  last june the trauma Center sponsored the first conference for school personnel on the subject. That was followed in september by a conference at Columbia University s teachers College co sponsored with the National school safety Center. Just a decade ago Little attention was paid to the problem. But the growing recognition of the Field s importance led the american psychiatric association in 1987 to include in its official diagnostic manual the category Post traumatic stress disorder in children Ihus allowing its treatment to be paid by medical insurance. Ii May be a sign of the times that schoolteachers and administrators nationwide Are preparing to tend to traumatized students and staff. Perhaps the worst such tragedy occurred last january at Cleveland elementary school in Stockton Calif. There during the late morning recess for first second and third graders. Patrick Purdy who had attended Cleveland school during those grades stood at the playground s Edge with a semiautomatic assault Rifle and fired for seven minutes the playground became a killing Field. Then Purdy shot himself in the head with a pistol. Five children Lay dying a teacher and 29 More children were wounded. The Bedrock of a school is its status As a Safe Haven where parents can leave children in the care of adults who will guard them from danger and where children can feel protected. An invasion like Patrick Purdy s obliterates that image. We know we re no longer Safe in a building with no Keaton Sun left with her tie fitter it Koala Tan it one of the 29 children wounded by a gunman who and on a school playground in California a year ago killing five youngsters. She atoll has a Bullet fragment imbedded in her hip. Locked doors said one Cleveland school teacher who taking Down a poster found a Bullet Hole. It was irom one of the 19 or so bullets that had passed through her classroom s outer Wall and a steel door. None of the teachers interviewed for this article wanted his or her their name used since Many teachers had received death threats from people who expressed resentment at the shooting being used to justify gun control legislation this feeling of helplessness is one of the More pernicious results of trauma along Wilh anxiety and fearfulness. Insomnia irritability and depression neither teachers nor school staff nor parents Are immune. Partly for their own emotional Well being and partly Lor the children whose recovery can be undermined if they sense that grown ups Are upset adults May also need therapy. Comparatively few adults or children Ever receive treatment however. One of the big problems in treating children is that most families and schools even most paediatricians shrug it off with the attitude that if you Don t talk about it in will go away said Irving Berkovitz who Heads a committee on mental health in schools for the american psychiatric association. It does  children react to trauma differently with utter apathy for example to everything from studies to eating or with a level of anxiety that makes them fearful of a car backfiring. Most have nightmares some disguise their trauma in game playing such As the Purdy game at Cleveland school in which the villain Purdy uses a sub machine gun to mow Down schoolchildren then turns the gun on himself. When students play Purdy sometimes they make up a different ending it is they who kill Purdy. These games Are part of children s recovery says Lenore Terr a child psychiatrist. Terr was among the first to observe such behaviour among children in Chowchilla Calif., who in 1973 were kidnapped As they Rode Home from a summer Camp on a bus the kidnappers buried the bus children and All in an ordeal that lasted 27 hours five years later Terr found the kidnapping re enacted by its Young victims in games they played like travelling  in which a Barbie doll goes somewhere in a bus and comes Back safely. The response to anxiety is to try to master the  Terr explained. The children keep repeating the scenario to reassure themselves that it s not  Freud called this the repetition  and saw it at the Root of All neurosis research with trauma victims though has led modern experts to another View obsessive repetition can help put terror to rest As children use fantasy play and daydreams to rethink their ordeals in therapy these re enactments Are signs that children have not come to grips with the trauma the goal of therapy is in part to free them from the emotional charge that compels repetitive play so that they can play normally. Therapists May play a game with a reticent child to establish rapport. Therapy Lor children who survive trauma is typically Brief and focuses on helping the child master the troubling memory by reviewing it. The memories Are intense perceptual  Elk said the sight sound and smell of gunfire the screams or sudden silence of the victim the splash of blood on the child s clothes the eventual police  children May be reluctant at first to talk about continued on Page 17 Page 16 the stars and stripes saturday january 20,1990