rhinoceros
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Not always good to talk
« on: 2003-06-26 12:29:02 » |
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Counselling can add to post-disaster trauma
New Scientist, June 25, 2003
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993867
The counselling routinely offered to people in the immediate aftermath of a disaster seldom protects them from developing post-traumatic stress - and it could even delay their recovery.
This is the conclusion of a comprehensive review of the "single-session debriefings" offered to victims straight after an incident. In single-session debriefings, a counsellor talks to a victim to help them learn about and prepare for any psychological problems they might encounter later.
Such briefings are still used by mental health professionals, although less so in Europe. But the review by a British team suggests it can exacerbate stress in some individuals who might otherwise have recovered normally, either by talking with friends and family or by blocking out any recall of the incident until they felt ready.
"We have an ideology that it's 'good to talk'," says psychologist Simon Wessely of King's College London, who was involved in the research. "But sometimes that's not so." We should question the whole notion of debriefing, he says.
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Three of the studies found that people who had experienced such events coped best if they had had counselling, six found it made no difference and two found that such counselling hindered people's recovery. The team has published its results in the journal Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics (vol 72, p 176).
In the same issue of the journal, its editor, Tom Sensky, points out that the findings echo those of a Dutch study published in The Lancet in September 2002. Together, they suggest that the technique should be abandoned, he says.
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