Disaster Psychiatry: Intervening When Nightmares Come True

Disaster Psychiatry: Intervening When Nightmares Come True captures the state of disaster psychiatry in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. This emergent psychiatric specialty, which is increasingly separated from trauma and grief psychiatry on one hand and military psychiatry on the other, provides psychotherapeutic assistance to victims during, and in the weeks and months following, major disasters. As such, disaster psychiatrists must operate in the widely varying locales in which natural and man-made disasters occur, and they must establish their role among the chaotic array of organizations involved in direct disaster response.

Editors Anand Pandya and Craig Katz have captured the challenge and promise of disaster psychiatry through first-person narratives. We hear from psychiatrists who have encountered disasters at various stages of their career and in widely varying social, political, and personal contexts. Accounts of psychiatric involvement with adults and children during and after 9/11 have understandable pride of place in this collection. But they are balanced by richly informative narratives about other domestic and international disasters.

Fraught with the drama attendant to the events they describe, these essays delineate the dizzying array of challenges that confront the disaster psychiatrist. They range from the intense emotional responses that are part of the aftermath of any disaster, to the need to legitimize a psychiatric presence within diverse cultural and medical contexts, to the subtle task of providing therapeutic boundaries at a time when all rules seem to be suspended. Special attention is given to the daunting task of working with children whose parents' are disaster victims. What emerges from these testimonies is compelling documentation of skilled and compassionate psychiatrists at the outer limits of their specialty, pursuing their calling into uncharted realms of therapeutic engagement.

Anand A. Pandya, M.D. graduated from Harvard College with Honors in Mathematics and Philosophy and received his medical degree from New York University School of Medicine. Dr. Pandya received his general psychiatric training from Columbia University and forensic psychiatric training at New York University. Cofounder of Disaster Psychiatry Outreach, Dr. Pandya runs the ADEPT Program at Bellevue Hospital and is a member of the Department of Psychiatry of New York University School of Medicine. He is active in the American Psychiatric Association and serves on the board of directors of the National Alliance for the Mentally ill. Craig L. Katz, M.D. graduated from Harvard College and received his medical degree from Columbia University. He completed a psychiatry residency at Columbia University and a fellowship in forensic psychiatry at New York University. Dr. Katz is Director of Acute Care Psychiatry Services and Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. Cofounder and President of Disaster Psychiatry Outreach, he has most recently directed the World Trade Center Mental Health Screening and Intervention Programs that address the mental health needs of Ground Zero workers and volunteers. Dr. Katz serves as cochair of the American Psychiatric Association's New York County District Branch Committee on Disaster, is a member of the advisory panel of the Aircraft Casualty and Emotional Support Services, and is a contributor to the Committee on Terrorism of the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry.