Disaster and Trauma: How to Help

Over the last few years we have seen a large number of natural disasters. Dr Joe Kosterich talks about the effect of disaster events and trauma for people at the epicentre of a disaster and for people watching on their television, including counselling for those who need it, and how people can offer help, support and empathy.
One of the advantages of the modern world is that we can be instantly connected with events and people all around the world. One of the downsides, though, is that if any trauma or major event happens it’s also beamed straight into our computer or TV.
Hi, I’m Dr. Joe.
Seems like there’s more and more going on in the world and people are feeling bombarded with all sorts of news and events and happenings. We’ve seen over the last few years a larger number of natural disasters, floods, fires, earthquakes, of course, we had the tsunami some years ago. Whether it’s more than used to happen in the past or whether we just hear about it more is an interesting question.
If you lived in the 17-1800s, even in the early part of the 20^th century, you pretty much would have known what happened in your village or your town. If there was an earthquake on the other side of the world or a flood on the other side of the world, chances are you wouldn’t know about it, it wouldn’t be part of your existence. Today, pretty much anything in the world can be beamed straight into our living rooms.  Now, it’s good to know what’s happening in the world but it can also seem a bit overwhelming.
So how do we deal with some of these events that just seem to come at us and almost bombard us? How do we deal with some of the trauma?
Now, there’s two issues with this. Obviously, this is for the people who are at the epicentre, they’re right in the middle, and to some extent they got to be running on adrenaline. People at the epicentre of any disaster end up knowing what they need to do.  Otherwise, I suppose, none of us would be here, the species would have died out eons ago. So when you’re confronted with a fire or a flood or some other sort of calamity, it’s not the time people sit down and form a committee and say: “What do I do?” People react. They do what they need to do, almost instinct kicks in. It’s after the event that people think: “Goodness me! I could’ve been killed” or  “Goodness knows what happened”, or if there’s been property damage then go back and assess that. The second group of people are those who are perhaps watching from afar.
Once upon a time, people were left pretty much to their own devices. If there was any sort of trauma people would come around, maybe give a pat on the back or a bit of a hand but it was sort of deemed that you’d just got on with it and got through it.
Today there is a much greater emphasis on counselling and assistance for people. I think it’s fair to say that not every single person is going to feel that they need counselling, those who do need it certainly it’s good that it’s available and often the governments and councils get involved with this these days. And some people will get through by themselves and should be allowed to do that and shown that respect. But other people do need help and should be quite willing to put their hand up and say: “Hey, look, I’m not doing that well. I need a little bit of guidance or a little bit of counselling.”
Often the simplest interventions help. An ear…people sometimes say: “What can I do to help?” And sometimes the most useful thing is just providing an ear so people can download, get things off their chest.
The capacity to share experiences and sometimes just to say to somebody: “Look, this is how I was feeling, does that make me crazy or not?” (The answer’s almost always: “No, it doesn’t.”), again, can be quite therapeutic. Or even just have some validation: “Yes, you’re feeling that bad about this. How else would you expect it to feel?” So often we need validation and it’s these very simple things: the touch of a hand on the shoulder, a hug, just a recognition, those sorts of things can be immensely powerful. They don’t necessarily come in a pill, you don’t even need 5 years of uni to offer this sort of assistance. People sometimes say: “What can I do to help? I haven’ got a degree or all that sort of thing.” And generally what people need is some support, some recognition, a bit of understanding.
Try to – it’s a funny exercise, but – put  yourself in that situation: “What would I like?” (if you were in that situation), “I’d like people to be there for me”, “I’d like somebody to be able to talk to”,  “I’d like somebody to sort of recognize and understand what I’ve been through.”
And it can be hard to exactly know what people have gone through if you haven’t gone through it yourself. We can’t pretend, but we can empathize. And empathy, which is different to sympathy, is a very underrated thing that humans are capable of doing. Empathizing with somebody is saying: “I don’t know what you’re going through but I can understand what you’re going through.” The two are not quite the same. Essentially saying: “Look, it’s ok to feel what you’re feeling.” And also sometimes just a kind word or things like: “This will pass,” or “There is potential for rebuilding,” or “Look, there is still life, you can pick up the pieces again.”
Okay, so to sum up: there is no one size fits all. There is no sort of miracle key or miracle pill in these sorts of situations. And there is no time frame either. It’s going to take different people different periods of time to get over traumas and to come to terms with them.
If you’re wondering what can you do to help somebody who you know is going through a bad time, either through some major trauma or just a personal trauma, it doesn’t have to have made the news, then an ear, a kind word, a touch of the hand, just being there are amazingly powerful human attributes that can make a surprisingly big difference.