The experience of a mental health team involved in the early phase of a disaster. Aust and NZ J Psychiatry 18:354-358
The reactions of a volunteer mental health team which convened in the aftermath of the 1983 Ash Wednesday bushfire are reported. A questionnaire designed to explore psychological and physical responses was completed by the 19 staff who made up the team. Using both open-ended and closed questions, the questionnaire tapped such areas as motivation, goals, expectations and observations, initial and later emotional and physical reactions, fantasies and evoked memories; Analysis of responses indicated that team members experiences considerable stress during their post-disaster work but also gained a great deal at both professional and personal levels. Sources of stress are discussed as are recommendations for their alleviation.
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Publication Author: Paul Valent
Publication Date: 1984
Categories: Compassion fatigue
The human costs to staff from closure of a general hospital: an example of the effects of the threat of unemployment and fragmentation of a valued work structure. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry. 35:150-154
The closure of a major public hospital had significant effects on the medical and other staff. Special stressors were the perceived meaninglessness of the project alongside erosion of medical values. Demoralisation and physical and psychosocial symptoms were surprisingly numerous and significant.
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Publication Author: Paul Valent
Publication Date: 2001
Categories: Assertiveness, Combat & Work, Biopsychosocial, Compassion fatigue, Disasters & Wars
Diagnosis and treatment of helper stresses, traumas, and illnesses. In C Figley (Ed.). Treating Compassion Fatigue
Compassion strain, compassion fatigue, secondary post-traunatic stress and secondary PTSD are defined among the wide range of helper symptoms. Symptoms are as wide ranging as those of survivors, and this is understandable as helpers reverberate and identify with survivors and attempt to complement their unsuccessful survival strategies. Helper stresses, traumas and illnesses are as well as treatment are conceptualised and placed in a coherent order.
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Publication Author: Paiul Valent
Publication Date: 2002
Categories: Compassion fatigue
Survival Strategies: A framework for understanding secondary traumatic stress and coping in helpers. In C Figley (Ed.) Compassion fatigue: Coping with Secondary Traumatic Stress Disorder in Those Who Treat the Traumatized
In order to understand the secondary traumatic stress (STS) reactions of those who deal with traumatized people, it is necessary to understand the responses of the primary victims, because it is the primary victims’ responses the evoke the secondary responses. This chapter explores which specific responses arise in which situations, as well as their secondary effects and their means of transmission.
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Publication Author: Paul Valent
Publication Date: 1995
Categories: Compassion fatigue
