The goal of this book is to explore how communities rebound, reflect, and recover from the events they have experienced. Building upon these accounts, the volume then discusses strategies to assist grieving communities heal and bring closure. Each chapter presents a specific traumatic event or series of events and gives perspectives on how these events affected the individuals involved as well as the community as a whole.

Full Description:   

Disasters are the substance of most media reports. The television and radio news, magazines and newspapers all talk of the devastating effects of storms, plane crashes, earthquakes, floods, fires, assassinations and other tragic events. But how can communities heal from these disasters? What are the long-term impacts? This essential book answers these questions. Furthermore, it presents a model for effective counselor intervention in bereaved communities.

Individual chapters in this book have been written by traumatologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers and family members who have witnessed the effects of traumatic events first hand. Each chapter presents a specific traumatic event or series of events and gives perspectives on how these events affected the individuals involved as well as the community as a whole. Each account explores how the communities involved coped with each disaster on several different levels: cognitively, physically, emotionally, spiritually, creatively, and practically. A goal of this book is to explore how communities rebound, reflect, and recover from the events they have experienced. Building upon these accounts, the volume then discusses strategies to assist grieving communities heal and bring closure.

Table of Contents

• Preface.
• Introduction.
• The Connection between Grief and Trauma: An Overview, M. B. Williams, E. S. Zinner and R. Ellis.
  Human-Made and Natural Disasters.
  The Challenger Disaster: Group Survivorship on a National Landscape, E. Zinner.
  The Estonia Disaster: National Interventions, Outcomes, and Personal Impacts, L. Nurmi.
  The Kempsey Bus Disaster: The Effects on Australian Community Rescuers, R. Watts, Marise Wilson.
  Coping with Meaning: The Community Response to the Earthquake in Armenia, A. Kalayjian.
• Loss of Leaders/Heroes.
  Death of a Leader: The Social Construction of Bereavement, E. Witztum and R. Malkinson.
  The Death and Rebirth of a Hero: Mickey Mantle's Legacy, L. Harnell.
• Terrorist/Political Actions.
  The Whole of a Community's Grief: Community Interventions in the Aftermath of the Terrorist Bombing in Oklahoma City, K. Sitterle and R. Gurwitch.
  The Threat to Belonging in Enniskillen: Reflections on the Remembrance Day Bombing, D. Bolton.
  The Significance of Unforeseen Death in a Community on the Brink, Amia Lieblich.
• Synopsis.
  Summary and Incorporation: A Reference Frame for Community Recovery and Restoration, E. Zinner, M. B. Williams.