The south and east of our country have been hit these days by a DANA with few precedents in modern history; all one natural disaster which so far has resulted in at least 70 deaths.
Floods, having to leave home, losing possessions, the death of a loved one… In addition to their obvious material consequences, emergencies like DANA have an important psychological impact for all those affected, who will now have to undertake a long process to face what happened.
“Care must be specialized in emergencies”
As explained to 20 minutes Alesya Beneroso Lara, health psychologist, the first step on that path is essential: “Something very important is psychological care that is done at the moment. If it is not adequate, it can even generate post-traumatic stress disorders.”
“DANA is an example, but to put another in the Spanish context this was seen a lot after another tragedy like 11M. At that time any psychologist who could care for those affected was called, and there were people without specific training in emergency psychology who ended up with post-traumatic stress from having done an attention that surpassed them and for which they were not prepared. From then on this type of specialty began to be valued more in Spain, more than the massive calls for help.”
“The problem is that we don’t have that many psychologists specialized in this in Spain. Most of those that do exist work in the hospital emergency service or in mobile units,” he adds.
“The first phases are key to the process”
This expert explains that this specialized care at first It is so important because managing what happened in its first phases can be key to the subsequent process. “How the person has received what happened and how they handle it in the first hours already indicates whether the event can generate post-traumatic stress or not.”
He post-traumatic stress disorderhe clarifies, “consists of a level of anxiety higher than the basal state that remains after a certain time after the traumatic event.”
And, as he describes, “it is normal that for about a month there are traumatic symptoms. They are quite complicated events; “if you have lost your home, if you have lost family members… You will have to overcome a grief, which as such is not something pathological.”
“They need tools for active coping”
For Alesya, the key to prevent this grief from becoming pathological (“for example, that the symptoms of grief last one or two years after the event”) is about “providing the tools to actively cope with the adverse situation.”
“It’s different for each person. But it can range from going to peer mutual aid groups, such as those that exist for relatives of suicide victims (in Madrid there is one called Princesa 81) to receiving specialized care.”
From the point of view of professionals, he defends, the key is that the approach must change over time. “The support processes,” he concludes, “must begin when a shock has been experienced, regardless of whether it ends up being traumatic or not over time. But they will not be the same if the person has spent some time and still has problems; In those cases, personalized attention to post-traumatic stress disorder will be needed.
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