Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T15:05:23.566Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

8 - Mental Health in Traumatic Times

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2012

Karen M. Seeley
Affiliation:
Columbia University, New York
Get access

Summary

Previous chapters described the particular difficulties New York City mental health professionals encountered, and the overall inadequacies of their field, in responding to the World Trade Center attack. Yet before mental health professionals were able to complete the necessary project of addressing such deficiencies, they found themselves under pressure to prepare for future attacks on American ground. This concluding chapter examines their varied attempts to meet the urgent and unfamiliar demands posed by the arrival of international political terror in their midst. After discussing emerging plans for mental health preparedness, it examines significant and lingering uncertainties within the mental health field concerning the psychological impacts of the attack, the treatment of trauma-related disorders, and the definition of post-traumatic stress disorder. It then explores mental health professionals' efforts to make their work more relevant to these traumatic times by revising clinical assumptions, altering therapeutic practices, and reformulating notions of social and political responsibility.

ARE WE PREPARED?

As the fifth anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center approached, the events of September 11, 2001, remained very much in the news.

Type
Chapter
Information
Therapy after Terror
9/11, Psychotherapists, and Mental Health
, pp. 168 - 196
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×