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Many individuals, particularly the young and the elderly, may be overwhelmed by a disaster, and may experience difficulty in coping with the situation and their feelings. You can support them by remembering these guidelines:
Accept every person's right to have her or his own feelings. Try not to tell victims how they should feel.
Accept the victim's limitations as real. An individual who has lost his or her ability to cope with his or her feelings is as disabled as one who has broken a leg.
Accept your own limitations. In a community-wide disaster, chances are great that you will be feeling the same anxiety as the people you are trying to help. Your initial attention should be on yourself, then on family members, and finally with neighbors.
Right from the beginning, make every effort to explain to the victim what has happened, what is being done about it, and what the likely POSITIVE outcome will be.
Communicate confidence in yourself, and in your ability to help the victim.
Encourage the victim to speak freely about whatever is on their mind. If they are having difficulty, some general statement about what may have happened may increase their confidence in you to the point that they will begin talking.
When the victim begins talking, interrupt them as little as possible. After you have heard the full story, you can ask for details. Just a couple of minutes talking can relieve some of their feelings and truly works wonders.
Try not to agree or disagree with a person's distortions of reality; these distortions are real to the victim. Do not argue with a victim if they disagree with you.
Find a way for the victims of a disaster to participate in the recovery efforts within your family or within your neighborhood. Tell them that you need their help in responding to the disaster that you all have shared. It is comforting to watch the family and the neighborhood begin to resume its normal functioning, and to have had a part in it.
