Page 56 - Creating Spiritual and Psychological Resilience

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Disaster Relief

emotional Values
Sandra Buechler

Introduction

What can a psychoanalyst contribute on the subject of disaster relief?
Analysts are trained to notice and question basic assumptions. In a sense,
that is all we do. When we analyze “transferences,” we are challenging
fundamental assumptions about relationships. When we address “resis-
tances” and “defenses,” we are calling attention to how people believe they
have to defend themselves. Accordingly, in this brief contribution, I first
examine and question some problematic assumptions that relate to disas-
ter relief that I believe are prevalent in our society. Then, I summarize
some ideas I have drawn from theories about human emotionality, which
I believe can help us when we address people that are in great pain.

Society’s Problematic Assumptions

Health Means Getting Over Grief

From my point of view, all too often we assume that the healthy response
is to “get past” mourning losses. We estimate how long grieving should
take, as though we were timing baking a cake or cooking a turkey. A bit
of unintentional humor and, more importantly, some significant assump-
tions underlie this quotation from the New York Times (Carey, 2006, p. F8):

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