Aasai

UNDERSTANDING DISASTER PSYCHOLOGY.

Disaster psychology refers to the study of the psychological effects of traumatic and stressful events to individuals, groups and societies.It aims in understanding the causes of disasters,response to disasters, coping with disasters by building resilience and the various ways and methods can be used to mitigate and control these disasters.In addition to that,it aims at explaining the need of psychological first aid and other interventions put into place in response of the effects caused by these disasters.

Disaster psychology has various concepts that needs to be understood clearly inorder for us to build resilience.Resilience refers to the ability to cope amidst challenges and problems including the disasters.Vulnerability has been used to refer to the process of being unable to cope with the challenges caused by the disasters.Disasters refer to traumatic or stressful events in life that cause mental instability.Examples of disasters can be grouped into two categories namely:

Natural disasters.Natural disasters refers to the traumatic and harmful self occuring events.Human beings have no control over them.They include earthquakes,earth tremors,floods, drought,strong winds and many others.On the other hand, human made disasters refers to the events caused or facilitated by human beings and animals.Examples include environmental degradation activities such as quarrying which may lead to landslides and community conflicts which can lead to death of groups of people.

Human activities can easily hasten natural disasters to occur.For example quarrying can lead to loosening of land and rocks hence leading to landslides and even earthquakes which can claim the lives of many.Both natural and human made disasters when they occur they cause very detrimental effects to both human beings and the environment at large.

Post traumatic stress disorder is one of the main effects that are caused by disasters.Post traumatic stress refers to the physiological and behavioural response to traumatic event (disaster)which happened in the past maybe in the last few months.Post traumatic stress disorder is characterised by anxiety, panic attacks,nightmares and disturbances in moods.Post traumatic stress disorder has been identified as a psychological disorder and published in Diagnostic Statistical Manual.

Loss is another effect of disasters.If human made disasters occur for example inter countries conflicts for example between Iran and Russia, the attack by use of nuclear bombs and weapons claim the lives of majority by causing death or causing terminal illnesses resulting from the inhaled harmful and dangerous gases.When this happens, families will have lost their properties and lives of loved ones.Very many families will have to get stressed because of this occurrence.

What are the various interventions that should be adopted to ensure psychological healing of the individuals affected by the disasters? Psychological first aid is very important as it opens a platform for debriefing the people affected about the need for resilience and also trauma counselling whereby counsellors apply the psychological principles and theories to ensure acceptance attainment and raising education and awareness among them.During this time,psychologists can apply cognitive behavioural therapy to challenge the thoughts of the victims.

Psychology of disasters serve very fundamental roles for example informing the policy and planning.This can be done through emergency response institutions and other humanitarian assistance organisations.It also help in mitigating challenges and coming up with the strategies in which people can build resilience.