Hurricane Opens Trauma Wounds
- Document
- Posted on: 06.06.2018
- Abstract
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Now that a major storm has struck the same regions that were battered last year, people face something called Re-traumatization. This is the opening of old emotional wounds and the anxious anticipation of such re-wounding. It may be worse that the original trauma because it implies a string of "bad luck"-a sense of endless travail rather than one bad episode that has come and gone. It often feels like the old trauma plus a new trauma plus a loss of psychological safety. Psychological safety may be a myth (the thought that everything will eventually turn out right) but it is a helpful myth.
Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma