title: Crisis intervention after the Tsunami in Phuket and Khao Lak.
abstract: After the Tsunami disaster in Southeast Asia, India, Sri Lanka, and Africa, the German government set up a crisis task force that implemented crisis-intervention teams covering Thailand (Phuket and Khao Lak), Sri Lanka, and Sumatra. Two crisis teams were sent to Phuket; the first one on 28 December 2004, and the second one on 3 January 2005, each for an average of 1 week. This intervention was primarily for the benefit of German citizens and their expatriates and relatives caught up in a major catastrophe as well as the German helpers. This article describes the organizational structures of the German crisis intervention, protective factors for the helpers, psychiatric syndromes--often acute traumata, the problems of the identification process for relatives, and crisis intervention itself. Consequences for further crisis intervention after natural disasters are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, Munich, Germany. bronisch@mpipsykl.mpg.de
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Bronisch
authors.forename: Markos
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Maragkos
authors.forename: Christoph
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Freyer
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Müller-Cyran
authors.forename: Willi
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Butollo
authors.forename: Regina
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Weimbs
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Platiel
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002391:Catchment Area, Health; D003419:Crisis Intervention; D004190:Disasters; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D013313:Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic / Q000628:therapy*; D013785:Thailand