Crisis intervention after the Tsunami in Phuket and Khao Lak.
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.
Bronisch
Thomas
T
Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, Munich, Germany. bronisch@mpipsykl.mpg.de
Maragkos
Markos
M
Freyer
Christoph
C
Müller-Cyran
Andreas
A
Butollo
Willi
W
Weimbs
Regina
R
Platiel
Peter
P
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