Fearful Symmetry: Shared Trauma in New Orleans After Hurricane Katrina

Abstract

The reports by Linda M. Floyd, Kathryn L. Nathan, Deborah R. Poitevant, and Elsa Pool convey more powerfully than any scholarly article the physical, personal, professional, and dynamic dilemmas that local mental health professionals had to contend with as they resumed practicing after the catastrophic disruption of Hurricane Katrina. It was “uncharted territory.” This commentary addresses the complex dynamics that emerge when clinician and patient have survived identical or very similar disasters. Under these circumstances, when clinicians work to contain their patients' anxieties, anxieties that in many respects mirror the clinicians' own anxieties, the boundaries between self and other, between inner and outer, between signifier and signified, between private and public, between reality and fantasy are challenged. The significance of these findings advances our understanding of shared trauma.

Acknowledgments

I am deeply grateful to Stephen Seligman for his editorial help and direction with this series of papers, and to Kathryn L. Nathan who initially recognized the need for the intervention described here and invited me to New Orleans to consult on the FAR Fund Project.

Notes

¹With apologies to William Blake.

²The exceptions include several papers and books following the 9/11 attacks, which consider the effects of working in the immediate aftermath of a disaster, when the analysts' feelings of vulnerability and self-doubt are still fresh (see, e.g., Frawley-O'Dea, 2003; Goldman et al., 2002; Saakvitne, 2002; Seeley, 2008; Tosone, 2003;see also Dekel & Baum's, 2009, review of several social work articles). Mitrani (2003)examined analytic dyads when both members had survived a historical trauma, the Holocaust, and noted a “coincidence of vulnerability” that inhibited psychoanalytic inquiry and significantly diminished treatment outcomes. In a courageous and finely grained paper, Shoshani described his journey from experiencing humiliation and shame at being unable to keep his own reactions in check when Tel Aviv became the target of long-range missile attacks during the First Gulf War, an event that was inescapably shared with patients, to a growing understanding that when there is a common traumatic reality, the analyst must face his own shame and powerlessness and give up belief in therapeutic omnipotence (Shoshani, Shoshani, & Shinar, 2010).

³Lijtmaer (2010) described the profoundly positive impact the disclosure that she too had recently lost her home to a flood had on a patient whose home had been damaged by fire and who was growing increasingly suspicious that her therapist did not understand the loss.

⁴Although the BP oil spill, which occurred that summer, had viscerally reminded people about their earlier terror.

⁵Further details of the project and a list of best practices for clinicians working in a community recovering from a catastrophic event can be found at http://Therapistspostdisaster.com

⁶Some clinicians in New Orleans declined the opportunity to be interviewed or to attend any of the lectures or workshops, believing that it was safer not to relive their experiences during and after the hurricane.