Coping with Catastrophe is a practical handbook for people who provide psychosocial aftercare for victims of disasters. This completely revised and updated second edition includes the latest findings on the nature and effects of trauma, the psychological debriefing process and the effects of emergency work, and the latest treatment models for post-traumatic stress and abnormal grief. Eminently practical and easy to read, Coping with Catastrophe provides readers with information and skills to respond effectively and confidently to the needs of disaster survivors. It will be of immense value to a wide variety of helping professionals and carers, including social workers, psychologists, doctors, voluntary counsellors, and all those whose work brings them into contact with disaster victims.

First Published in 1983. All families experience stress: the adjustment period when an infant is born; the many problems engendered by adolescents; role, dual-career, and work demands; environmental and societal problems; sexuality; divorce; marital tension; and the stress inherent in single parenting and stepparenting. In addition, families are frequently confronted by unexpected, stress-causing catastrophes: chronic illness and death addiction; abandonment by a spouse; unemployment; rape; national and international political crises; and natural disasters. Stress and the Family, Volume II: Coping With Catastrophe shows how the family produces and reacts to stress-causing situations and problems, and identifies a wide range of stress sources-those "normal," gradual, and cumulative life stressors commonly related to intimate family interaction and development, and those sudden, unpredictable, and often overwhelming stress-causing events or circumstances arising outside the family microsystem. The volume provides a blueprint for understanding the intricate patterns of individual and family reactions to catastrophes, showing how pro­foundly a disaster which strikes one family member can affect the entire family. Clinicians and family researchers discuss catastrophes that impact families infrequently, but without warning and with devastating consequences. Each chapter opens with a brief case study of a family struggling with the aftermath of a particular catastrophe.Coping With Catastrophe, and its companion volume, Coping With Normative Transitions, are based upon research, theories, and techniques in this area from both family therapy and sociology. The clear, practical intervention methods described and meticulous structural organization make both vol­umes pioneering textbooks for students and professionals interested not only in a comprehensive understanding of stress and the family, but also in strategies for helping families develop effective coping styles.

This book offers a broad theoretical foundation by relating and contrasting relevant international literature with the outcomes of a particular research project. It provides a critical reevaluation of the complex phenomena of coping with disasters on a general level by applying this integrative theory of disaster coping to a specific context. A cultural psychological model is developed in order to suggest ways of understanding and assessing local and cultural specificity. This interaction of the general and locally specific is central to our understanding of cultural psychology of coping with disaster. The book provides a basic overview, by presenting various approaches to coping with natural disasters and relating them to each other in a coherent manner. So far, most research approaches either focus on technical, social, psychological or cultural aspects of coping, neglecting their interconnectedness. Coping is seldom seen as an extensive, long-term process, in which disaster relief complexly interacts and is integrated with the local actors and conditions. Until now, a perspective is missing, in which the mentioned modes of coping are integrated with cultural interpretations and practices and long-standing forms of communal self-help, which possibly develop in places that are frequently threatened by natural disasters.

A comprehensive & objective study of governmental capacity to respond effectively to major natural disasters. Covers: evolution of the emergency management function; Federal responsibility & the President's role in emergency mgmt.; FEMA; the Federal responsibility & the role of Congress; state & local government organizational capability; & is the current approach viable? Extensive bibliography. Charts & tables.

Explains what a disaster is and how to cope physically and emotionally with its devastating effects.