Psychosociaal crisismanagement na calamiteiten: casussen en interventies

Abstract

Psychosocial crisis management after calamities: cases and interventions Calamities are accompanied by for example chaos, casualties, uncertainty, and stress during the first hours and days. Although stress reactions are considered normal reactions after such events, nowadays often psychosocial care providers are asked to deliver immediate psychosocial help to the affected people. In this paper it is argued that in this early phase, professional helpers should primarily focus on the human aspects of crisis control and crisis management instead of (only) focusing on the possible development of event-related psychopathology among victims. In addition, instead of creating ‘new’ temporary psychosocial support systems for victims, existing ‘social systems’ should be used and supported as much as possible. For this purpose, two examples of calamities and interventions aimed at psychosocial crisis management are described and discussed. It demonstrates the need of flexibility and improvising skills among psychosocial care providers to match the (large) variety of problems caused by calamities.