New Hope CE Notes, June, 2007
William Gaultiere, Ph.D.

INTRODUCTION

The mass shooting at Virginia Tech on April 16 brought shock, grief, fear, and anxiety to people everywhere.  The wake of a horrific event like this careens into the lives of us all, not just close survivors.   Rapid and graphic news reports from the media bring a frightening crisis like this into the homes and our hearts of millions of people who are not directly connected to a victim or don’t live nearby.

How did the news of this massacre affect you personally?

How do we at New Hope help people affected?

• Loved ones who are grieving
• Those local to the crisis
• Killers’ family
• People overexposed to media coverage

And we want to pray together, now and later…

WHAT IS A CRISIS?

The Chinese language uses symbols or pictures for words.  Do you know what their symbol for crisis is?  It’s a most insightful and helpful concept.  They take the symbols for danger and opportunity and combine them. 

A crisis is dangerous.  33 people died at Virginia Tech.  Many more were injured.  Many thousands were adversely impacted in other ways.

There’s an opportunity in a crisis.  It’s a chance to show God’s love and compassion.  God uses the crises in our lives to do his works of healing, growth, relationship building, faith-lifting, and equipping for service to others who are hurting.

NORMAL REACTIONS TO TRAUMA

Trauma affects the whole person: emotions, thoughts, body, social connections, spiritually.  What are some symptoms of being traumatized?

• Shock
• Confusion and disorientation, sense of unreality
• Fear and vulnerability – “Am I safe?”
• Sadness and crying
• Inability to concentrate
• Anxiety
• Difficulty sleeping, upsetting dreams
• Irritability and outbursts of anger
• Shifts of mood
• Challenge to faith: “Why did God allow this?”
• Depression

TRAUMA THREATENS OUR BASIC NEEDS

Consider these five basic needs and the hurtful, negative thinking patters that trauma survivors may fall into:

1. Safety.  To live and to develop as people we need to be and feel safe.  The students who survived the Virginia Tech rampage probably thought, “This school (and maybe the world) is unsafe.  I won’t be okay.”
   
   
2. Trust.  We learn basic trust when we feel cared for in the beginning of life or later through healing relationships.  Those who have been violated or traumatized may conclude, “People are untrustworthy.”
   
   
3. Intimacy.  Soul to soul connection is what makes life fulfilling.  Trauma survivors may conclude, “I have to manage on my own.”
   
4. Esteem.  To realize that we are valuable is essential to our relationships and work.  Mistreated survivors will probably feel bad and may accept the message, “I am bad.”
   
   
5. Competence/Control.  We all need to fulfill our God-ordained purpose, to be able to offer our lives to God in important ways.  Trauma survivors tend to feel a loss of control and may conclude, “I can’t do what I need to do.”

Compared to the average person, people who are trauma sensitized from previous violations or disasters experience significantly higher arousal (emotional upsetness) and cannot calm themselves down.

POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER (PTSD)

PTSD is a mental disorder that is common among trauma survivors.  Being able to identify the basic symptoms of PTSD can help you to offer needed understanding and referrals.  A medical doctor or psychologist diagnoses PTSD when the following symptoms are present:

1. There’s been a real event that caused damage, or the threat of damage, to the person. In other words, it would’ve caused intense fear, horror, rage, or helplessness for anyone.  So we’re not talking about worry, paranoia, or hallucinations.
2. One month or more after the even the trauma is being re-experienced with flashbacks, nightmares, triggers, panic, or emotional flooding.
3. They can’t calm themselves down.  So they avoid the things they fear and try to numb out their emotions.  (See graph, “Normal vs. Trauma Sensitized”)
4. Their arousal level is too high.  The pain, fear, horror are unmanageable.  (See graph.)

There’s a time to be afraid and run and a time to be angry and fight back.  If you’re in a burning building, fear is a good thing and it’s best to run!  If you’re attacked and you can do something to protect yourself then you’ll need some “fight” in you.  Remember, that the value of anger is as an alarm and the godly way to protect yourself or deal with danger and injustice is to be governed by love and not anger.

My friend went to lunch with a co-worker and when walking back to their office they witnessed a stranger shoot and kill a man on the street right in front of them.  My friend chased the murder, tackled him, and confronted him, learning that the victim had slept with the man’s wife.  He held the murderer until the police came.  My friend’s co-worker was hiding behind a tree and shaking.  I think my friend was crazy!  He endangered his life and I’m not sure why.  He should have hid behind the tree with his co-worker. 

When it comes to recovering from trauma you want to rise to the challenge.  Trauma survivors who have the confidence to face their nightmares, fears, and pain by talking about what happened with a trusted friend and continuing on with their life will fare better and recover quicker.  Those who are more fearful may have trouble functioning, develop PTSD, or panic disorder.  They may go on disability, avoid reminders of the trauma or anything that frightens them, or overmedicate themselves.

HELP TRAUMA SURVIVORS BE AND FEEL S.A.F.E.

1. Stabliize situation and symptoms. 

Assess and respond to needs for physical safety, hospitalization, or referral for medications or psychotherapy.  A man who had been abused as a child and had his father murdered was having dissociation episodes and stress related seizures so I helped him identify when he was susceptible to an episode or seizure and told him not to drive and not to do his roofing work.  If someone is in an unsafe situation you can help them to go to safety or to realize their limits.

The callers/chatters need to be calm enough to talk about their experience.  They may need to pause and take some deep breaths.  Talking about their experience should help them to stabilize.

1. Arousal needs to be decreased to manageable levels.

Trauma survivors may be in pain or feel frightened, horrified, anxious, distraught, or upset.  They need support to calm down.  By listening and reflecting trauma survivor’s feelings you can help them to calm down. 

Don’t push them to discuss painful areas!  This could re-traumatize them.  Remember, the biggest mistake that New Hope Counselors make is trying to do to much.

Instead, be responsive to what they present.  An incest survivor was having flashbacks and painful memories of being abused by her father.  Her therapist pushed her to talk in detail about what happened and to re-enact a troubling scene and she felt violated by him all over again.  That made it all the harder for her to trust her new therapist and learn to receive comfort.

1. Focus on caring for the traumatized self.

The negative self-other messages discussed above need to be changed.  Compassion from a New Hope Counselor can begin this process.  Support groups and psychotherapy are important resources.  Where there was fear, trust needs to be developed.  Where there’s grief, comfort needs to be received.  Where there’s false shame, anger needs to be felt and mobilized.  This happens as painful memories are gently and gradually processed.

1. Empower to prevent relapse.

Trauma survivors need to re-establish their sense of self-control and to feel empowered to overcome the effects of the trauma and re-build their life.  As a New Hope Counselor you can recognize and affirm the caller’s/chatter’s strengths and progress.  And later in the conversation when you’re collaborating on an action step you can strategize and encourage mastery for future flashbacks or traumatic events by teaching coping skills (e.g., calling a friend, relaxation, limit setting, journaling, prayer).

COUNSELING EXAMPLES

As a New Hope Counselor how would you respond to these people?

Father of Victim

Darrell Scott lost his beautiful, precious daughter Rachel Scott, murdered in the prime of life in the Columbine High School shootings in Littleton, Colorado on April 20, 1999.

He spoke to the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee: “I am here today to declare that Columbine was not just a tragedy... I wrote a poem just four nights ago that expresses my feelings best. This was written way before I knew I would be speaking here today:

Your laws ignore our deepest needs,
Your words are empty air.
You've stripped away our heritage,
You've outlawed simple prayer.
Now gunshots fill our classrooms,
And precious children die.
You seek for answers everywhere,
And ask the question "Why?"
You regulate restrictive laws,
Through legislative creed.
And yet you fail to understand,
That God is what we need!

Dare to move into the new millennium with a sacred disregard for legislation that violates your God-given right to communicate with Him.”

Fellow Students at Virgina Tech

Glued to TV Reports of Trauma

Millions of people are traumatized by taking in horrifying graphic images and reports of violence. 

Limit exposure to media coverage!

Cho Family (Family of Mass Murderer)

The statement by Sun-Kyung Cho, sister of Seung-Hui Cho, on behalf of herself and her family:

On behalf of our family, we are so deeply sorry for the devastation my brother has caused. No words can express our sadness that 32 innocent people lost their lives this week in such a terrible, senseless tragedy. We are heartbroken.

We grieve alongside the families, the Virginia Tech community, our State of Virginia, and the rest of the nation. And, the world.

Every day since April 16, my father, mother and I pray for students Ross Abdallah Alameddine, Brian Roy Bluhm, Ryan Christopher Clark, Austin Michelle Cloyd, Matthew Gregory Gwaltney, Caitlin Millar Hammaren, Jeremy Michael Herbstritt, Rachael Elizabeth Hill, Emily Jane Hilscher, Jarrett Lee Lane, Matthew Joseph La Porte, Henry J. Lee, Partahi Mamora Halomoan Lumbantoruan, Lauren Ashley McCain, Daniel Patrick O'Neil, J. Ortiz-Ortiz, Minal Hiralal Panchal, Daniel Alejandro Perez, Erin Nicole Peterson, Michael Steven Pohle, Jr., Julia Kathleen Pryde, Mary Karen Read, Reema Joseph Samaha, Waleed Mohamed Shaalan, Leslie Geraldine Sherman, Maxine Shelly Turner, Nicole White, Instructor Christopher James Bishop, and Professors Jocelyne Couture-Nowak, Kevin P. Granata, Liviu Librescu and G.V. Loganathan.

We pray for their families and loved ones who are experiencing so much excruciating grief. And we pray for those who were injured and for those whose lives are changed forever because of what they witnessed and experienced.

Each of these people had so much love, talent and gifts to offer, and their lives were cut short by a horrible and senseless act.

We are humbled by this darkness. We feel hopeless, helpless and lost. This is someone that I grew up with and loved. Now I feel like I didn't know this person.

We have always been a close, peaceful and loving family. My brother was quiet and reserved, yet struggled to fit in. We never could have envisioned that he was capable of so much violence.

He has made the world weep. We are living a nightmare.

There is much justified anger and disbelief at what my brother did, and a lot of questions are left unanswered. Our family will continue to cooperate fully and do whatever we can to help authorities understand why these senseless acts happened. We have many unanswered questions as well.

Our family is so very sorry for my brother's unspeakable actions. It is a terrible tragedy for all of us.

REFERRAL RESOURCES

Your New Hope Referral guide is a comprehensive, national directory of over 50 pages of phone numbers and websites, including referrals for “Crisis Intervention” and “Suicidal.”  It’s in the phone room and on our public website, http://www.newhopenow.org/.

FREE RESOURCES FOR THE PUBLIC

Visit http://www.newhopenow.org/ for self-help articles.  (These are free resources for callers and chatters.)

ADDITIONAL NEW HOPE TRAINING

Visit www.NewHopeNow.org/counselors, for the “CE Notes” to past classes and many other training articles.  For instance, in the CE Manual category “Crisis Intervention” you’ll find the following:

1. How to Respond to a Crisis (Case Discussion)
2. The Crux of Crisis Counseling: T.L.C. for S.O.S.