By Deanna Harris
A therapist who worked at ground zero after the 9-11 terrorist attacks has been assisting a trauma recovery team working with Christchurch earthquake victims.
The New Zealand Trauma Recovery Team is a group of nationally and internationally certified NLP Master Practitioners and Trainers working with victims of trauma.
“This is a six month job or longer. People will be in a varying degree of need. Some will be coping quite well right now and it will hit later. Then there will be some very traumatised people. It would have been a dramatic shock. The aftershocks and size of the disaster will leave more people traumatised then some might expect,” says NLP coach and member of the New Zealand Trauma Recovery Team Karen Ross.
The team has helped people who suffered trauma in disasters like the tsunami in Samoa in September 2009.
She says the NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) techniques they use have been shown to be the most effective solution to treating post-traumatic stress disorder in war zones and post 9-11.
Ms Ross has been learning from a therapist, Dr Frank Bourke, who worked at ground zero after the 9-11 terrorist attacks in New York.
“He has been giving us advice on how to run it down there.”
Ms Ross says even though the earthquake is completely different to 9-11, the trauma caused is similar because it is an unexpected event, which will cause on going problems.
“It will have a similar impact.”
The recovery team is currently co-ordinating their response and seeking funding.
“What we know is that people will be in immediate shock.
“I have heard there are certain people who don’t want to go to work, they are scared and don’t want to keep going.”
Ms Ross says the aftershocks make it difficult to deal with the situation as they are a constant reminder of the big quake.
“With the aftershocks continuing to happen it is going to compound people’s fear of ‘is this going to be another big one?”
Ms Ross says the team of therapists will be positioned in the community, where they will be easily accessible.
“A key for our team is to position ourselves somewhere in the community that people know that they can have help from us.”
Minister for Social Development, Paula Bennett has pledged $2.5 Million for trauma counselling to support Canterbury’s shaken and quake-weary residents.
“We’re on day five now and it’s clear people are tired and feeling the effects of Saturday’s earthquake, so we’re making help available.
“Children and adults alike have been deeply affected by the quake and the equally traumatic aftershocks,” says Ms Bennett.
Yesterday, 34 counsellors arrived on the ground and additional counsellors will come from a wider network of providers including Relationship Services, The Salvation Army and Victim Support.
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