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September 2011 2011 39: 1203 originally published online 16The Counseling Psychologist

Sue C. Jacobs, Mary Ann Hoffman, Mark M. Leach and Lawrence H. GersteinAction, Practice, and Research

Counseling Psychology and Large-Scale Disasters: Moving on to  

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1Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma, USA2University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA3University of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky, USA4Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana, USA

Corresponding Author:Sue C. Jacobs, Ph.D., School of Applied Health and Educational Psychology, 425 Willard, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK 74078. Email: sue.c.jacobs@okstate.edu

Counseling Psychology and Large-Scale Disasters: Moving on to Action, Practice, and Research

Sue C. Jacobs,1 Mary Ann Hoffman,2 Mark M. Leach,3 and Lawrence H. Gerstein4

Abstract

Juntunen and Parham each reacted positively with important personal reflections and/or calls to action in response to “Counseling Psychology and Large-Scale Disasters, Catastrophes, and Traumas: Opportunities for Growth.” We com-ment on the primary themes and suggestions they raised. Since the time we were stimulated by Katrina and its aftermath and the Indian Ocean tsunami to conceptualize and bring to fruition this major contribution, large-scale disas-ters seemed to be happening everywhere (even to some of us personally or as responders). This underscores the need Juntunen highlighted to examine our motivations, self-care, privilege, and the long-term impact of disasters and disaster response work. Also, we agree with Parham that it makes palpable the need for counseling psychology to move beyond compassion and action by a relative few to act now, respond to, and engage in systematic action and research on large-scale disasters, through a bioecological and social justice approach.

Keywords

disaster, professional issues, bioecological model, social justice

Rejoinder

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Juntunen: Reflections on the Opportunities and Challenges of Disaster Response

Juntunen’s focus and the themes she identified are particularly salient as they arose out of her own experiences losing a home and her community and workplace as she had known it, as a recipient of disaster services, and as a mental health disaster responder. We especially appreciate her sharing her story and bringing to life some of the themes she identified in our contribution (the need to have a more complex view of the needs of those individuals and communities affected by disasters, the need for collaboration, opportunities for the practice of social justice, and opportunities for bioecological interven-tions and research). She also suggested areas in need of further exploration and concerns needing counseling psychologists’ attention including: “the role of counseling psychologists in disaster preparedness, the potential risk of ‘glamorizing’ disasters and disaster response, and some ethical considerations for counseling psychologists engaged in disaster work” (Juntunen, 2011, p. 1184); we agree with all of these.

Another point Juntunen made that we find particularly important is the need for the individual counseling psychologist to reflect on their own motiva-tion to be a disaster responder and the need for research about the motivation(s) behind being disaster responders in general. This is a topic, among others, that we wish we could have explored in greater detail. Obviously, people would not want to be responders if they did not perceive some personal ben-efit from doing so, but at what point does focusing on one’s own needs or being unaware of one’s needs affect being attuned to the needs of those we are trying to help? Is it one of the factors that contributes to burnout or com-passion fatigue? When does an altruistic need, a lack of self-reflection, a lack of knowledge, or lack of consulting with others perhaps harm? I (Jacobs) still recall feeling unheard, discounted, labeled and categorized, and definitely outraged when an American Red Cross volunteer, self-identified as a psy-chologist, told me I should get out of line because I “shouldn’t need help or shouldn’t need food or gasoline vouchers” because I “was a psychologist and university faculty member so must have resources!” This was the same 1997 flood Juntunen experienced, only I did not sacrifice my home, but shared other of her experiences and reactions; we did not have access to money as the university was closed for 2-plus months and the banks in which we had money were not functional for a time. But I also remember knowing, com-pared to some others in line, that I was privileged because at some point money would be there for me while it would not for others in my community. I remember thinking then, and definitely told this story to students and

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colleagues, that it felt “awful to be treated as a victim, as if I knew nothing” as I listened to their similar stories, such as receiving “donations” of clothes that were ripped, stained, etc., as if their “victim” status did not warrant dignity and respect. Juntunen spoke about the importance of being aware of our priv-ilege as volunteers and responders lauding Spokane, Inman, Weatherford, Kaduvettoor, and Straw (2011) for doing so. And she underscored the need for responders to assess their readiness to respond as well as their motivation to respond, as Bowman and Roysicar (2011) illustrated with questions they ask trainees. It is equally important to note that responders can vary over time and contexts in their readiness, motivation, and/or ability to respond and at what level of response. This is another research question; perhaps as Juntunen suggested, counseling psychology could start with a qualitative study of coun-seling psychology responders. Another issue is that once a responder, it is difficult sometimes to not respond when there is so much need. But part of self-care is learning to recognize when one can be effective or when compet-ing demands on oneself may make that difficult.

Juntunen noted as did Spokane et al. (2011) and Bowman and Roysicar (2011) the importance of being aware of the realities of disaster response; it is not as depicted by the media. The media are most focused on the proximal effects of a disaster such as viewing flooded houses. We appreciated her pointing out this concrete reality of disaster work, the biases of the media, and how such biases distort what is actually happening in the impacted areas. Related issues needing more research for which we lacked pages in our con-tribution include responder burnout and secondary traumatization. Equally important is research focused on understanding responder resiliency, self-care, and health-promoting strategies both in the short and long run.

In the context of what disaster response work is actually like, Juntunen pointed to the importance of training our counseling psychology students in consultation and conflict-resolution skills. Bowman and Roysicar (2011) pre-sented some examples of students from their programs using these skills in disaster response, but as Juntunen also noted, it is likely difficult for many counseling psychology programs to train students in specific disaster responses. Yet many of the competencies used in disaster responses mirror competencies, such as consultation, professional self-reflection skills, and multicultural counseling skills that are already being taught in training pro-grams. Other competencies such as conflict-resolution, mental health first aid, collaboration and interdisciplinary team work, interventions at the community level, and public policy advocacy may not be. We need to learn about programs that are teaching such skills.

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Another critical area that Juntunen added to what we lacked space for was identifying some excellent ethical issues involved in disaster response. This is also an area in which counseling psychology could collaborate with the American Psychological Association (APA), state psychological associations, and other professionals in discussing implications and solutions. Furthermore, it is an area in which counseling psychologists who focus on professional and ethical issues could collaborate with others in developing disaster readiness and prevention plans and methods for evaluating the effectiveness of these preventive interventions. These topics were the focus of an Ethics Committee breakfast meeting post-Katrina learning lessons from psychologists and state psychological associations from communities that had been affected, such as Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, and Alabama. Besides issues facing counsel-ing psychologists as responders, there are ethical issues for counseling psy-chologists when our own communities experience a disaster or catastrophe. These include everything from support from other counseling psychology programs as was organized by the Society of Counseling Psychology (SCP) Hurricane Relief and Disaster Response Special Task Group post Katrina (Jacobs, Leach, & Gerstein, 2011, Appendix A), individual psychological sup-port, support for clients of impacted counseling psychologists and clinics, and prevention plans for items such as client files and billings.

Last, but very importantly, Juntunen expanded on the discussion in our articles on vocational behavior in a way that provided a rich context and potentially important approach to thinking about the role of work, vocational behavior, and our responses as counseling psychologists. The importance of work as a key component of self-identity, financial security, and social sup-port was noted by Hoffman and Kruczek (2011). Much more discussion and research is needed on this topic by members of our profession. She raised a particularly critical issue regarding the role of work for those who experience traumas that are long lasting—especially the role of work in disasters and their political aftermaths such as Katrina that go on and on. Or, ones that destroy towns, like the 1997 floods in North Dakota, the recent tornadoes in Joplin, Missouri, or the “triple-whammy disaster,” as Parham (2011) described it, that recently changed regions of Japan and the people who live there. There is so little research on how mass catastrophes affect work and employment for those most affected. We could perhaps learn from research on the economic and political demises of cities like Detroit, MI and not just the impact of lack of work but the creation of new work and whether it is work from which individuals, families, and/or communities can survive and make meaningful and healthy lives. Hoffman and Kruczek (2011) touched

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on this topic in their article¸ but this is an important research direction that we hope some counseling psychologists pursue.

We would like to respond further regarding the value of the bioecological framework we used in all the articles in this major contribution in terms of framing issues (such as work following disasters that seem to last forever or catastrophes that demolish the infrastructures of communities) in a useful way and be heuristic in many other ways (e.g., generating research), but that is difficult with the current paucity of literature in this area published by coun-seling psychologists. This is an issue that we all grappled with, especially Hoffman and Kruczek (2011), as we wrote our articles and an issue that brings us to Parham’s (2011) call to action. Our model provides a heuristic approach that identifies many areas for future research.

Parham: A Call to Action: Responding to Large-Scale Disaster, Catastrophes, and TraumasParham eloquently and passionately restated a number of major points that ran throughout each of the four articles in this major contribution. He points out that the response (or rather lack of response in some cases) of govern-ments is important to stress in conceptualizing and responding to these catas-trophes and disasters as is the role of the media. He reminded us of the politics of responding to large-sale natural or human-made disasters, or both, as in the case of Katrina and more recently Japan. He noted as well that some catastrophes involve multiple components such as the recent three events in Japan. He kept in our memory ongoing acts such as the so-called “justified homicide” of Black men in New Orleans by the police post-Katrina and sup-posed false reports on the internal Japanese media about the nuclear danger following the tsunami. His questions about the short- and long-term costs of disaster aftermaths such as these or the surface or increase in human traffick-ing following the 2004 Sri Lanka tsunami and the 2010 Haiti earthquake are real and also need to be considered in counseling psychology’s social justice and scientist-practitioner paradigms. Our bioecological model of mass disas-ters and catastrophes, the components of which were discussed in detail by Hoffman and Kruczek (2011), provides a means of examining these ongoing or chronosystemic effects that occur over time.

In bringing to light less wide-scale disasters and traumas (e.g., interpersonal violence, workplace violence, violence on college campuses), Parham (2011) importantly asks us also to keep them in mind in a systematic response to trauma, including training, research, prevention, intervention, and advocacy.

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In this regard, he raises even more questions needing research and preventive planning. Although neither Parham nor Juntunen discussed these in detail in their responses, it is important to underline here that disasters include the traumas of war and genocide (Jacobs et al., 2011) as well as those that are nature-made or caused by human error, lack of attention to the infrastructure, or post-disaster violence, such as that Parham (2011) chronicled. Parham’s questions and calls for counseling psychologists to respond can apply to war and genocide as well.

One of our reactions to Parham’s response is an increasing recognition that many mass catastrophes truly are not time-limited and that we need to address this fact also as counseling psychologists. Parham underscored this in his framing as ongoing disasters much of what has happened in the past year with the triple catastrophe in Japan and the flooding and tornadoes in the United States, as well as the natural and human-made disasters of Katrina. And we know relatively little about what happens to people and communities over time (distal effects) versus what we know about the proximal effects. Many people volunteer for the immediate aftermath of disasters, but there is less interest in the ongoing efforts to rebuild communities in terms of housing, agencies, schools, mental health issues, substance abuse—the sequela of disasters and mass catastrophes. In fact, many effects of mass events are indi-rect and may not even be attributed to the major event. This is true for the long-term effects on responders as well. We do know that ongoing stress and stressors lead to more serious outcomes, including health and mental health outcomes, and that this is true for both individuals and communities. The media are most interested in the immediate drama of the event, but eventually it fades from the public awareness.

Yet the authors of this major contribution and Parham and Juntunen in their reaction papers all pointed out that those more directly involved remain struggling with stress, social injustice, etc. long after the responders have left. For example, those of us who watch “Treme” see that suicides (as one example) do not always occur right after the event, but may occur years later as indi-viduals struggle to regain what they have lost and eventually give up hope that this is possible. We need as counseling psychologists to also respond in a systematic way through research, action, prevention, advocacy, and policy to these challenges. What are the ongoing personal, interpersonal, community, and opportunity costs of these disasters? Is that toll even greater than that of the initial trauma? What can we do as counseling psychologists with our par-ticular values and research, intervention and prevention skills that can reduce these human costs, reduce the long-term pain and ruin? What can we learn by telling those individuals and communities about what gives/gave them the

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strength to continue and/or support to rebuild their resiliency and community cohesiveness and functioning?

Parham (2011) began his response asking us how many of five birds are left sitting on a fence after three birds decide to fly away. He concluded by telling us the answer is five, not the obvious answer of two, because deciding to fly is not actually flying. He then calls for counseling psychologists to “stretch behaviorally beyond their personal boundaries of comfort and safety using a more of thee and less of me mindset to frame their adventure into new territory” (Parham, 2011, p. 1200)—that new territory being the agenda we suggested in our contribution for research and responding to large-scale disasters and trauma.

This, in some ways, brings us back to our individual and collective motiva-tions for this major contribution. As individuals, some of us had personal experiences with disasters and/or as responders; others had none. Some had research interests and expertise in trauma. Many of us had been part of the SCP response to Katrina, and many have been involved in professional social justice activities. All of us are involved in the training of counseling psycholo-gists and share the values, orientation, and skill sets that are unique to counsel-ing psychology as well as those of psychology. A major motivation for this major contribution for the four of us whom initiated it (Jacobs, Leach, Gerstein, and initially Robert Lent) was a desire to keep, share, and build upon the les-sons many counseling psychologists, including some of us, had learned as local disaster survivors and/or responders. Another equally important moti-vation was to put research and response to large-scale disasters and trauma on the research and action agenda of counseling psychology as a profession as we believe the unique strengths, perspectives, and skill sets of counseling psychology could bring much to disaster response, research, and action. Since the time we were stimulated to conceptualize and bring to fruition this major contribution by Katrina and its aftermath, mass catastrophes and disasters seemed to be increasingly happening everywhere and even to some of us per-sonally or as responders. We agree with Parham (2011) that our struggle now is figuring out how to get the birds to actually stretch their wings and fly. But we want to also caution and again underscore the need that Juntunen (2011) highlighted. As individual counseling psychologists we must examine our motivations, self-care, privilege, and the long-term impact of disasters and disaster response work. Flying does not mean responding on the ground for everyone; some of us may not be fit for that or motivated to do so. Our call to the counseling psychology profession is to utilize a bioecological approach to training, responding to, and researching mass catastrophes and traumas both proximally and distally. As members of the counseling psychology profession,

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we want to be contributing to disaster response, research, action, and the prevention of longer term emotional consequences in a systematic way. In summary, the next challenge is helping the five birds to not only decide to fly away but to help them to fly away, in an informed, prepared, and self-reflective way if they are capable of doing so.

We would like to thank both Juntunen (2011) and Parham (2011) for their overwhelmingly positive reactions to the four contributions (Bowman & Roysicar, 2011; Hoffman & Kruczek, 2011; Jacobs et al., 2011; Spokane et al., 2011) making up this major contribution, “Counseling Psychology and Large-Scale Disasters, Catastrophes, and Traumas: Opportunities for Growth.” Our colleagues’ interest, excitement, and belief that counseling psychologists have unique perspectives and skills to bring to disaster response, research, and action and that this is an important direction for counseling psychology mirror our own views. Therefore, this is not a rejoinder as such because we do not disagree with concerns or expansions raised by the reaction papers. Instead, we briefly look at themes raised by our colleagues and focus on the areas that provide important future directions, augment what we have said in our articles, and provide perspectives or cautions that we did not include.

AcknowledgmentsWe would like to especially thank Juntunen for sharing her personal disaster stories and the continuing personal impact of her experiences and thus take this opportunity to reflect on the impetus for this major contribution, our personal and professional motiva-tions to make it happen, and the lasting impact of our personal experiences and experi-ences as responders to disasters. We would also like to thank Parham for his powerful discussion of the manner in which mass disasters often foster and perpetuate social injustice in terms of who is affected and who can recover. His metaphor of “five birds sitting on a wire” signifies his call to action; we join him in calling upon counseling psychologists to act now and respond to and engage in systematic action and research on large-scale disasters, through a bioecological and social justice approach. Parham’s strong emphasis on the role of social justice at all levels (individual, family, commu-nity, work place, schools, and universities, national and international) is appreciated and provides an anchor for this major contribution on large-scale disasters and catastrophes and our call to move on to action, practice, and research.

Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

FundingThe authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publica-tion of this article.

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References

Bowman, S. L., & Roysicar, G. (2011). Training and practice in trauma, catastrophes and disaster. The Counseling Psychologist, 38, 1160-1181.

Hoffman, M. A., & Kruczek, T. (2011). A bioecological model of mass traumas: Indi-vidual, community and social effects. The Counseling Psychologist, 38, 1087-1127.

Jacobs, S. C., Leach, M. M., & Gerstein, L. H. (2011). Introduction and overview: Unique roles. Training and research contributions to large-scale disasters and catastrophes. The Counseling Psychologist, 38, 1070-1086.

Juntunen, C. (2011). Reflections on the opportunities and challenges of disaster response. The Counseling Psychologist, 38, 1182-1192.

Parham, W. D. (2011). A call to action: Responding to large-scale disasters, catastrophes and traumas. The Counseling Psychologist, 38, 1193-1202.

Spokane, A. R., Inman, A. G., Weatherford, R. D., Kaduvettoor, A., & Straw, R. (2011). Ecologically-based culturally concordant responding following disasters: The counseling psychologist’s role. The Counseling Psychologist, 38, 1128-1159.

Bios

Sue C. Jacobs, PhD, is the Ledbetter Lemon Endowed Diversity Professor and train-ing director of the counseling psychology program at Oklahoma State University. She also directs the OSU Preparing Futures Faculty in Psychology program. Her research interests are varied and include issues of social justice, culture, health, older adults, and professional issues in psychology.

Mary Ann Hoffman, PhD, is a professor in the Counseling Psychology Program and training director at the University of Maryland (Department of Counseling and Personnel Services). A primary research interest of hers is adaptive coping with major life events with a focus on biopsychosocial aspects that facilitate or hinder coping.

Mark M. Leach, PhD, is a professor at the University of Louisville in the Department of Educational and Counseling Psychology and training director of the counseling psychology program. His research interests include culture as it pertains to forgive-ness, suicide, and international psychological ethics.

Lawrence H. Gerstein, PhD, is the director of the doctoral program in counseling psychology and the director of the Center for Peace and Conflict Studies at Ball State University (Muncie, Indiana). He is also a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and recognized expert in the areas of international and peace psychology, and social justice.