Colleagues in distress: 'helping the helpers'

Abstract

When mental health professionals themselves become victims of trauma, especially secondary to a war situation, it becomes the ultimate test for fellow professionals. Now they are put into the position of supporting and helping those who provide assistance to others. It brings to the surface one's own uncertainties, fears and vulnerabilities; after all, we are all human. This paper describes the mobilization of such efforts on the part of the professionals helping other professionals in the mental health field who under normal circumstances would be one's colleagues, hence the notion 'helping the helpers'. The following is a description of one such effort where mental health professionals, themselves feeling overwhelmed, traumatized and victimized, welcomed the assistance of other mental health professionals from a different country with different religious, ethnic and cultural issues.