{"id":62915,"date":"2012-07-20T08:00:28","date_gmt":"2012-07-20T12:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=62915"},"modified":"2012-07-25T15:14:46","modified_gmt":"2012-07-25T19:14:46","slug":"coping-with-tragedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2012\/07\/coping-with-tragedy\/","title":{"rendered":"Coping with Tragedy"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Psychiatry<\/a>
Psychiatry professor Julian Ford is an expert on post-traumatic stress disorder. (Janine Gelineau\/UConn Health Center Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Incidents like the movie theatre shooting in Colorado demonstrate how sudden, unexpected acts of violence can not only end lives, but change lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe immediate impact is a sense of shock, disbelief, and confusion which is almost universal even for trained first responders,\u201d says Julian Ford<\/a>, professor of psychiatry at the UConn School of Medicine. \u201cThis is followed by heightened emotions such as fear, guilt, anger, or grief\u2014or a \u2018shut-down\u2019 response of feeling nothing or numb, both of which are normal reactions in the first few hours and days, sometimes occurring gradually and other times happening suddenly when a \u2018wave\u2019 of emotion or troubling memories takes the person by surprise.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ford, who is an expert on post-traumatic stress disorder, says for those who were involved in such an incident or who witnessed it on-site, the impact can linger far beyond when physical wounds heal. This is especially true if they felt as though they were trapped or believe they were specifically targeted.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey also are more likely to be intensely affected if they felt that they didn\u2019t do enough to prevent it from happening or protect themselves or others, that they can\u2019t get certain parts of the experience out of their mind, that they can\u2019t face any reminders without feeling overwhelmed or breaking down, or if they sustain physical injuries that cause persistent pain or disability,\u201d Ford says.<\/p>\n

Family and friends may notice survivors to be angrier, more withdrawn, more tense, less communicative, or less able to be intimate than they were before the trauma. These changes can be attributed to persistent PTSD.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Elizabeth
Elizabeth Robinson manages the UConn Health Center\u2019s Employee Assistance program. (UConn Health Center Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Elizabeth Robinson, manager of the UConn Health Center\u2019s Employee Assistant Program, discusses the benefits of EAP on the \u201cRich Answers\u201d program on WRCH-FM May 20.<\/p>\n

Listen to the audio >
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

When the scene of the incident is a workplace, it comes with additional dynamics.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is reasonable for employees to expect to be safe at their place of work\u2014especially one would think at a movie theater,\u201d says Elizabeth Robinson<\/a>, who manages the UConn Health Center\u2019s Employee Assistance Program<\/a>. \u201cAn incident like this shatters or sense of security in our \u2018immediate worlds.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Robinson, a licensed marriage and family therapist and certified employee assistance professional, says there are steps employers can take, starting with providing an organized response of support.<\/p>\n

\u201cEstablish times and places for employees to meet, and provide refreshments at these times,\u201d Robinson says. \u201cBe sensitive to the fact that everyone reacts differently and thus, do not be judgmental. Allow employees to participate as appropriate in any of the ritual activities following the trauma and perhaps most of all, know that the trauma response is a process over time and does not necessarily proceed in a linear fashion. There is no clearly defined end point.\u201d<\/p>\n

Robinson recommends employers make EAP available to employees and their family members.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no getting back to normal, or how things were before the event,\u201d Robinson says. \u201cThose affected are forever changed and their journey includes getting to know themselves and their world in a new way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crucial to emotional recovery is information, Ford says, to enable people to anticipate their normal reactions and recognize signs that they may need to talk to someone qualified to help them. His office, for example, offers a brochure on PTSD and stress management<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cCounselors and therapists should provide this information as well\u2014repetition often is necessary when people are recovering from emotional shock\u2014and they should know how to help victims or family members to first regain their emotional balance and then, usually not for several days or weeks, deal with troubling memories that persist,\u201d Ford says.<\/p>\n

Many factors go into how people react to tragic situations, Robinson says, including personal history regarding trauma, support network, family situation, other major life events or co-occurring situations. \u201cSome individuals may be in a state of shock longer than someone else, some may cry, or not cry at all. Some may want to talk, others not. Some may want to crack a joke to relieve the tension and to stay away from the intense emotional feelings of being reminded about the fragility of life and how one\u2019s reality can change in a heartbeat.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another thing to remember, Ford says, is that media accounts can deliver an event\u2019s impact to those who weren\u2019t there.<\/p>\n

\u201cBesides feeling a sense of sympathy for those affected, it can reach others mainly by reminding anyone who has experienced violence in the past in their own life of those past events. This could lead to a worsening in past PTSD, by opening up old emotional wounds, or symptoms such as anxiety or depression,\u201d Ford says. \u201cBut it won\u2019t cause anyone to develop PTSD out of the blue.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Follow\u00a0the UConn Health Center<\/a> on\u00a0Facebook<\/a>,\u00a0Twitter<\/a> and\u00a0YouTube<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Violent acts such as the movie theatre shooting in Colorado demonstrate the need to address the mental and emotional wounds in addition to the physical ones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":111,"featured_media":62916,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[179,1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[57,2010],"class_list":["post-62915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uconn-health","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-08 07:39:09","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/111"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62915"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62983,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62915\/revisions\/62983"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/62916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62915"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=62915"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=62915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}