More than a feeling: the complex interplay of trauma, emotions, and mental health in post-disaster contexts

ABSTRACT

While disasters and other forms of environmental change are known to carry emotional and mental health consequences, these consequences have received limited attention from environmental sociologists. In response, I employ 51 interviews with survivors of the 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise, California, nearby wildfires, and professionals involved in wildfire recovery and policy to develop an agenda and framework for better integration of emotions and mental health into sociological climate and disaster research. Thematic principles identified through in-depth interviews reveal deep and intricate intersections among trauma, emotions, mental health, and tangible elements of recovery like housing, migration, and inequality formation. Findings intended to guide and support future research along these intersections include the need for enhanced attention to temporal distinctions in short- and long-term recovery; that trauma underlying emotional or mental health outcomes may arise well after a disaster as a function of recovery processes themselves; the need to view emotional and mental health outcomes as reciprocal drivers of tangible recovery success or failure; and the advisability of attention to the emotional and mental health needs of recovery professionals. In sum, these suggest that emotions influence several disaster recovery fields and emphasize the need for productive collaboration.

KEYWORDS:

• Emotions
• mental health
• disaster
• climate change
• housing
• migration
• environmental sociology
• environmental justice

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank Dr. Jordan Fox for this assistance throughout this project, the editor and the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments on an earlier draft, as well as this study’s many key informants and participants who were critical in developing the ideas herein.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Biographical note

Dan Shtob is an environmental sociologist and Assistant Professor of Sociology and Urban Sustainability at Brooklyn College and the City University of New York Graduate Center. Among other interests, he is broadly interested in how disaster recovery unfolds in complex contexts that challenge our ability to plan and develop appropriate policy. His primary current project, of which this manuscript forms a part, is a collaborative effort to better understand environmental complexity, including in climate and disaster contexts.

Notes

1. This research was granted exempt status by the Brooklyn College, City University of New York, Human Research Protection Program (Protocol 2022–0022).

Additional information

Funding

This research was generously supported by a PSC-CUNY Grant and a Tow Research and Creativity Grant, each administered through the City University of New York Research Foundation.