The psychological toll of the tsunami

In my last post, I had mentioned that one of the immediate needs of the tsunami survivors would be expert psychological help. The trauma is severe many cases as many families/relationships have been torn asunder.

There is a story in the New York Times today that highlights this very issue:

After Food and Shelter, Help in Coping With Unbearable Loss

By BENEDICT CAREY

Published: January 4, 2005

roviding psychological services for millions who have lost family members, homes and communities in Sri Lanka, Indonesia and other countries will become critical in the coming weeks, officials from the World Health Organization, Unicef, and other relief agencies say.
...

It is imperative that healing be applied in the most careful, sensitive manner.

In most of the (traditional) societies where the tsunami hit, psychological counseling for grief and loss is not a common thing. Generally it is the family or the society at large (the village, the hamlet, relatives etc) who provide the fallback in such times.

But in this particular incident, entire families and villages have been devastated. What is there to fall back upon?

How do you console a little girl in a relief camp who does not know where her parents are but just hopes they turn up...

There has to be a huge number of concerned professionals who can soothe the searing grief of the suffering...and this is going to be a long process...