When Disaster Strikes: How Individuals and Communities Cope with Catastrophe

Analyzes the experience of disaster, discusses the psychological aspects of disaster warnings, survival, grief, and relocation, and examines the stress faced by victims and volunteers

Australian psychiatrist Raphael, author of the Anatomy of Bereavement ( LJ 9/15/83), draws from her own scholarly studies and from others' to describe human response to catastrophe (e.g., fires, floods, concentration camps, air disasters). She discusses such subjects as post-traumatic stress disorder, the victim-helper relationship, adaptive coping strategies, and the treatment of survivor and bereavement syndromes. Though the examples are current (Bhopal, the 1985 Mexican earthquake, AIDS), the general reader may be discouraged not only by the redundancy, jargon, and flowcharts but also by the scarcity of personal anecdotes. However, mental health professionals, lawyers, social workers, and public officials need this comprehensive and compassionate volume. Janice Arenofsky, formerly with Arizona State Lib., Phoenix
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