Does crisis counseling help or hurt?

So asks Jerome Groopman in a New Yorker piece focused on the grief work provided after the September 11, 2001, attacks.

Challenging some assumptions of the pervasive "critical incident stress debriefing" model, and looking at the causes of post-traumatic stress disorder, Groopman concludes with the idea that perhaps all that is necessary to deal with crises is whatever it is that helps us deal with grief--eat, drink, sleep, participate in community ritual, and talk to others in our social-support network.

In short, "The traumatized person should share what he wants with people he knows well: close friends, relatives, familiar clergy"--the social network that helps create meaning and safety for a particular person.

.: Posted by Duane Bidwell on Tuesday, March 02, 2004

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Celebrating the thunder at the heart of the universe, Spondizo explores pastoral theology, spiritual formation, and the vocation of caring for each other and the whole of creation.

The site is written and published by Duane R. Bidwell, Ph.D.

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© 2004-2007 Duane Bidwell. All rights reserved. Photograph courtesy of Charles W. Cushman Photograph Collection, Indiana University Archives (P15776).