Somatic Experiencing Treatment with Social Service Workers Following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita

In August and September of 2005, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita inflicted a devastating toll on U.S. Gulf Coast communities, leaving in the aftermath vast numbers of suffering adults and children. Disasters like these that cause massive devastation and prolonged community and economic disruption have been termed atypically strong disasters. Such strong disasters are frequently characterized by severe to very severe impairment of individual victims and survivors (Norris, 2001). In response to the devastation caused by the hurricanes, in October 2005 the administrators for a nationally based social services organization requested help from the Foundation for Human Enrichment in treating the disaster-related and vicarious trauma their staff had experienced as a result of these hurricanes. Agency administrators were concerned about the post disaster symptoms they were seeing in themselves and their staff. Many staff had fled Louisiana, leaving the agency short-handed to face mounting needs. Most of the agency staff from New Orleans were relocated to trailers in Baton Rouge, where they often conducted their work out of their cars or in local restaurants. The population of Baton Rouge tripled in a matter of days. UNTREATED WORKERS Social service providers and other professional helpers are often thought to be immune from typical traumatic responses that characterize "ordinary people" (Bamber, 1994). However, even when an individual has not experienced trauma directly, listening to the emotional aftereffects of traumatic events as described by clients can result in what is commonly referred to as vicarious traumatization or secondary traumatic stress (STS) (Blair.& Ramones, 1996; Figley, 1999; Schauben & Frazier, 1995; Sexton, 1999) and can in some instances result in traumatic stress (Lerner, 2005) and the development of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (Zimering, Gulliver, Knight, Munroe, & Keane., 2006). Bride's (2007) study of STS symptoms in 282 social workers found that 25 percent of the sample reported experiencing the following STS symptoms occasionally to very often: intrusive thoughts about clients, avoidance of clients, diminished activity level, emotional numbing, perceptions of foreshortened future, irritability, and difficulty concentrating. A study by Luce, Firth--Cozens, Midgley, and Burges (2002) found that individuals who experience a trauma both as a civilian and as a professional have higher levels of symptomatology than do those who experience the traumatic event solely as a civilian or as a professional. The traumatic stress reactions that often follow a catastrophic event can hinder the ability of local caregivers to function at predisaster levels with their constituencies. EFFECTS OF DISASTERS AND TRAUMA Carr and colleagues (1997) described two sets of psychological consequences that arise from a disaster: threat effects (those occurring in the immediate aftermath) and disruption effects (those extending weeks, months, and sometimes years beyond the disaster). Disruption effects included constant exposure to debris, disillusionment with governmental agencies, long delays for Federal Emergency Management Agency trailers, fear of the next hurricane season, property loss, displacement, fragmentation of families, financial stress, and the array of emotional symptoms associated with each effect. The Carr et al. study highlights the fact that natural disasters are not circumscribed events with a defined endpoint. When left untreated, traumatic stress reactions have been found to lead to long-term negative mental health effects (Bower & Sivers, 1998; Brady, Killeen, Brewenton, & Lucerini, 2000; Mayou, Bryant, & Ehlers, 2001). Furthermore, symptoms from a traumatic event can still be present after many years and may not spontaneously remit (Kessler, Sonnega, Bromet, Hughes, & Nelson, 1995). Levels of symptoms found early in the post disaster period have been found to be strong prognosticators of later symptomatology (Norris, 2001). …