SYMPOSIUM ON MASS CASULTY AND AIRLINE DISASTERS

TOPICS AND PRESENTERS

Presenter:  Renee Garfinkel, Ph.D.

Title:  THE POETRY OF RECOVERY

The hardest challenge for action-oriented people trained in emergency rescue
work is to respond to a disaster from which there are no survivors. When
rescue becomes recovery, many workers find their internal psychological
mechanisms tuned to an unfamiliar frequency, filled with static. They feel
urgency, but no staisfaction. They continue to work as professionals, feeling
helpless all the while.

As recovery proceeds, the burden of helplessness increases. Emotions become
confusing and volatile. Small events take on large meaning. A worker calmly
and stoically gathering bits of disconnected human body parts can become
undone when an intact teddy bear is recovered from the sea.

Emotional life at the site of an airline disaster has a language and rhythm
of its own. Like poetry, it expresses a great deal with an economy of sound
and movement. In order to be effective in this setting, a mental health 
worker needs to learn to read and interpret the poetry, and respond to its
message. Examples will be taken from the 1996 Valuejet and TWA flight 800
airplane crashes.


Go To Conference Page