Disaster Mental Health Services: A Primer for Practitioners

Description

Disaster mental health is a growing field of practice designed to help victims and relief workers learn to effectively cope with the extreme stresses they will face in the aftermath of a disaster. The goal of disaster mental health is to prevent the development of long-term, negative psychological consequences, such as PTSD. This book assists clinicians and traumatologists in "making the bridge" between their clinical knowledge and skills and the unique, complex, chaotic, and highly political field of disaster. It combines information from a vast reservoir of prior research and literature with the authors' practical and pragmatic experience in providing disaster mental health services in a wide variety of disasters.

Diane Myers, R.N., M.S.N., has been in private practice for over twenty years, specializing in Post-Traumatic Stress Assessment and Treatment, Crisis Intervention, Consultation and Training in Disaster Mental Health, Critical Incident Stress, and Traumatic Stress. Her teaching experience includes psychiatric nursing at Yale University, and nursing and community health at the University of Kansas School of Medicine.

"Both authors bring an extraordinary wealth of experience to this volume, and it shows. The text is grounded in practical science, reasonable interpretations of theoretical and scientific perspectives, and then expands to practical, practitioner-oriented guidelines and recommendations. Simply said, this is without a doubt the best book currently available on the topic of disaster mental health. It should be mandatory reading for students as well as practitioners."
-George S. Everly, Jr., Ph.D., author, A Clinical Guide to the Treatment of the Human Stress Response