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ROCKY MOUNTAIN REGION DISASTER MENTAL HEALTH NEWSLETTER

Learning From The Past and Planning For The Future

MENTAL HEALTH MOMENT
February 21, 2003

"If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn't lead anywhere."
- Frank A. Clark

Short Subjects

LINKS

Mental Health Moment Online

CISM/CISD Annotated Links

Gulf War Syndrome

WILDLAND FIRE INFORMATION

CONFERENCES AND WORKSHOPS:

Rocky Mountain Region

Disaster Mental Health Institute -

SPRING WORKSHOP SERIES

March 22 - Religious Aspects of

Domestic Violence

- Pat Bradley, MA, NACC, LAT

April 23, 24, 25 -

Crisis Counseling, Trauma, and Response:

A Multi-level Approach

- Marguerite McCormack, MA, LPC

May 3 - Suicide Risk Assessment and Risk Reduction:
Tactics For The Trenches

- Jon Richard, PsyD

NIMH Meeting Announcements

The Australasian Critical Incident

Stress Association Conference

The Right Response in the

21st Century

Location: Carlton Crest Hotel

Melbourne Australia

Friday October 3, 2003 thru

Sunday October 5, 2003

For further information

please contact the conference organisers:

ammp@optushome.com.au

Conference Website:

http://www.acisa.org.au/
conference2003/

Third Biennial International Conference

on Intercultural Research (IAIR)

May 16 - 19, 2003

Location: Taipei, Taiwan

Contact: 2003 IAIR International Conference

C/o College of Education

NTNU, PO Box 7-763

Taipei, Taiwan 106

Tel: +(886)2-2321-3142

Fax +(886)2-2394-9243

Email: t14004@cc.ntnu.edu.tw

VIII European Conference

on Traumatic Stress(ECOTS)

May 22 - 25 2003

Location: Berlin, GERMANY

Contact: Scientific Secretariat

VIII ECOTS Berlin 2003

c/o Catholic University of

Applied Social Sciences

Koepenicker Allee 39-57

D-10318 Berlin

Tel: +49-30-50 10 10 54

Fax: +49-30-50 10 10 88

E-mail: trauma-conference@kfb-berlin.de

Annual Conference Society for

Industrial/Organizational Psychology (SIOP)

April 12 - 14, 2003

Location: Orlando, Florida

USA

Contact: lhakel@siop.bgsu.edu

4th International Symposium on Bilingualism

April 30 - May 3, 2003

Location: Tempe, Arizona, USA

Contact:

4th International Symposium on Bilingualism

Arizona State University

PO Box 870211

Tempe, AZ 85287-0211, USA

Email: isb4@asu.edu

RESEARCH: POVERTY NOT ENDED BY JOBS ALONE

Welfare reform marked a radical change in the American war on
poverty. But how has it affected the lives of struggling families? To
find out, Linda Burton and a host of her colleagues are conducting
the largest ethnograpic study of its kind ever attempted. Burton, an
African American professor of human development and family studies at
Penn State, is part of the federally-supported study administered out
of Johns Hopkins University, with experts from Northwestern, the
University of Texas, Harvard, Brandeis and the University of North
Carolina. They are focusing on the effects of welfare reform on the
wellbeing of children and families in Boston, San Antonio and Chicago
by following the families as welfare evolves. The full story is in
the January 2003 issue of Research/Penn State, visit
http://www.rps.psu.edu/0301/jobs.html

WHAT'S IN THE NEWS: PAST PAYMENTS

In 1989, U.S. Representative John Conyers of Michigan proposed that
the United States should study the issue of whether to pay
reparations to the descendants of slaves. As noted in the latest
edition of "What's in the News," a current events show produced for
schoolchildren by Penn State Public Broaddcasting, support for the
proposal is gathering momentum. In the past, the U.S. government has
paid reparations to some American Indians whose lands were illegally
seized in centuries past and to Japanese Americans who were put in
detention camps during World War II. So why not pay reparations for
the deep wounds that slavery inflicted on African Americans? In the
closing months of the Civil War, General Tecumseh Sherman called for
reparations, saying that certain lands in South Carolina and Florida
should be divided into 40-acre plots and reserved for newly freed
slaves, but President Andrew Johnson vetoed any laws that proposed
giving land to freedmen. This week, "What's in the News" looks at
reparations and other issues rooted in the Civil War era. For more
information, visit http://www.witn.psu.edu

Storm Takes Parting Shot As Northeast Spends Millions Digging Out From Crippling Snowfall

The Northeast struggled to dig out Tuesday from a paralyzing storm that unloaded up to 4 feet of snow, busted city snow-removal budgets and stranded thousands of people at airports up and down the East Coast. For full story, go to: http://www.fema.gov/press/ap/ap021803.shtm

FEMA And CPSC Warn: When A Storm Knocks Out Power, Don't Risk Carbon Monoxide Poisoning By Using Gas-Powered Generators Indoors

Washington, D.C. -- When disaster strikes and the power goes out, many Americans turn to their gas-powered generators for heat and electricity. But when they set up those generators inside a second disaster may strike - more than 160 people will die this year from improperly using their generators. For more information, go to: http://www.fema.gov/nwz03/nwz03_015.shtm

A Right to Civil Commitment for Pre-Trial Detainees

State ex rel Riley v. Rudloff, ____S.E.2d____ (W.Va. 2002), is an extraordinary decision to issue from any court and is even more startling issuing as it does from a state court. The holding, in brief, is that a West Virginia statute that operates to wholly exclude pretrial detainees in state custody from participating in the application process for involuntary hospitalization for mental health care is unconstitutional and violative of detainees' Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause right to receive medical care. Put somewhat differently, a seriously mentally ill detainee in West Virginia who is offered no other custodial treatment option cannot be wholly excluded from consideration for commitment to an available state hospital. Thus, in a ruling that turns the usual civil commitment case on its head, detainee Riley is granted a federal constitutional right to - not to avoid - civil commitment. For the full article, go to: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/447880 Mental Health Weekly 13(2)2003.

When Children With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Become Adults

Historically, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has been viewed as a disorder confined primarily to pediatric patients, with only a small percentage persisting into adulthood. Full article at: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/442882 South Med J 95(9) 2002.

Afghanistan - Briefing Security Council, Brahimi reports 'remarkable' gains, persistant challenges

Brahimi tells Security Council that while impressive gains had been made in Afghanistan, the peace process was "far from secure" amid worrying reports that support for the remnants of the Taliban might be growing in some areas. For further information, go to: http://www.un.org/apps/news/infocusRel.asp?infocusID=16&Body=Afghanistan&Body1=

Iraq - Wrapping up visit to Rome, Annan says war in Iraq not inevitable

The United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, reiterated his belief that war in Iraq is not inevitable. �I have maintained that war is not inevitable and that war is always a human catastrophe, and we should exhaust all other possibilities for a peaceful settlement before war is even contemplated,� the Secretary-General told reporters after addressing the 25th anniversary meeting of the Governing Council of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). For the full story, go to: http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=6200&Cr=Iraq&Cr1=

UNITED KINGDOM - Three Iraqi mystery ships are tracked over suspected 'weapons' cargo
"might be carrying Iraqi weapons of mass destruction"
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=379623

IRAQ - Iranian-backed forces cross into Iraq
http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1045510848273&
p=1012571727088

TERRORIST BEHAVIOR AND PSYCHOLOGICAL FORCES

Psychological Impact

Despite the limited potential in terms of the ratio of actual casualty/cost, the overall impact
of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) can be devastating when the short-and long-term psychological
consequences are considered. In a 1-month period in 1991 Iraqi scud missiles were responsible
for 1000 admissions to Israeli hospitals. At the time, there was a great concern that these
missiles might contain chemical or biological agents, and 230 admission cases were coded as
atropine overdose. Five hundred forty-four admissions were coded as anxiety related, and there
were two scud missile-related deaths. Clearly, the impact on society can be much greater than
initial casualty rates might imply. The long-term psychological impact of the use or even threat
of WMD is difficult to predict. Changes in daily activity, depression and suicide rates, and
economic impact can last for years or even decades, and current disaster experts have no models
to predict the ultimate need for counseling services (Becker, 2001). It is difficult to
understand terrorism without psychological theory, because explaining terrorism must begin with
analyzing the intention of the terrorist actor and the emotional reactions of the audiences.
Toeloelyan (1989) considered some of the specific mediating factors that lead some societies
under pressure to produce the kinds of violent acts that we call 'terrorist'.

Theoretical Frameworks

Groebel and Goldstein (1989) present some of the research findings and perspectives that inform
our views of the development, the phenomenology, and the consequences of terrorism. Special
attention is drawn to the psychological factors involved in the occurrence and consequences of
terrorism. Groebel and Goldstein explore the role of the media and examine specific instances
of national terrorism, including Basque terrorists in Spain and terrorists in Germany. The
psychological consequences for the victims, sometimes neglected in terrorism research, is
specifically explored.

Reich (1990) discusses several aspects of terrorism that seem susceptible to psychological
inquiry. The aspect of terrorism that seems most suscepticle of all to such inquiry is the
psychology of the terrorists themselves: their developments, motivations, personalities,
decision-making patterns, behaviors in groups, and, some would argue, psychopathologies. However
susceptible terrorists' motivations and personalities may be, in principle, to psychological
inquiry, such inquiry, in practice, is regularly beset by problems that, in devious but powerful
ways, limit, undermine, or even vitiate it. These problems mainly stem from too exclusive a focus
on psychology itself or too narrow a definition of it.

Bandura (1990) explores the psychological mechanisms that enable terrorists to do what they do--
in particular, to kill persons who are, by most criteria, not responsible for whatever wrong
terrorists may be trying to right. Post (1990) argues that political terrorists are driven to
commit acts of violence as a consequence of psychological forces, and that their special psycho-
logic is constructed to rationalize acts they are psychologically compelled to commit. The
principle argument is that individuals are drawn to terrorism in order to commit acts of violence,
and their special logic, which is grounded in their psychology and reflected in their rhetoric,
becomes the justification for their violent acts.

Various explanations of terrorism focus on social learning hypotheses that emphasize cognitive-
behavioral conditioning. It can be argued, based on psychological studies, that the commitment to
terrorism is largely produced, intensified, and sustained through learning. Conditioning techniques
used to indoctrinate and train in the ways of violence and terror can be described, and doctrines
that have spawned and sustained the funding and training in guerilla warfare and revolution can
be noted. Current political-military methods for attempting to combat terrorism can be assessed,
and it can be argued that cognitive-behavior modification (counterconditioning), if properly
programmed and used in conjunction with other procedures, may be successful in combating and
preventing terrorism.

Miller (1988) reviewed the literature on terrorism. He identified 2 distinct perspectives in the
literature--traditional and behaviorist. Traditional literature focuses on historical and
normative-judicial/legal studies. The behaviorist literature encompasses psychological,
socioeconomic, and public policy studies and attempts to systematically explore the causes of
terrorism and the remedies and solutions to international terrorist events.

Brunet (1989) discusses the psychodynamics of terrorism within the theoretical framework of
Freudian metapsychology and M. Klein's (published 1923-1968) concept of "good" and "bad" internal
objects. The same intrapsychic mechanisms are essentially at work in those who witness and those
who perpetrate terrorist acts. Terrorists represent Klein's schizoparanoid position, in contrast
to the more mature and enlightened depressive position. Terrorists' compulsion to destroy the
good internal objects in themselves and others becomes irreversible after they destroy real
instead of fantasy objects. The position of those who witness terrorist acts is more ambivalent,
alternating between identification with the victims and with the aggressors.

Motivations

Gayraud (1988) defines terrorism in terms of its methods rather than recognizing it as a political
philosophy or an ideology thus allowing the stigmatization of a definite enemy. Terrorism is
viewed as a new form of warfare that blurs the distinction between periods of hostilities and
peace. Linn (1988) focuses on motivation of soldiers to fight against terrorists and discusses the
specific nature of this type of war as compared to a conventional war. The interplay of the
justice laws of war and the different types of fighting against terrorists are explored. On a
practical level, Linn presents the specific example of the Israeli approach to fighting the
terrorists and discusses the experience of soldiers who refused to fight in the Lebanese war and
the sociomoral factors that discouraged them.

McCauley and Segal (1989) examined data and theory from three areas of research relevant to the
social psychology of terrorist groups: religious conversion to cults, extremity shift of group
opinions, and individual extremity shift in obedience studies. They present an overview of what
is known about terrorist groups and their members, and then demonstrate how a social psychological
framework can be useful in the analysis of terrorist behavior.

Olsson (1988) developed a speculative and theoretical framework to assist in understanding the
intrapsychic and group dynamic depth psychology matrix for the motivations behind a terrorist
act. He summarized what is known about the childhood and adolescent development of terrorists and
the effects on child development in countries where terrorism and terror are a day-to-day reality.
The media is discussed as a powerful worldwide mirror with multi-channeled immediacy of social
impact. Other topics of discussion included: the group self, the need to have enemies and allies
and the personal pathway model of a terrorist self; the personal pathway model; and intergroup
unconscious action delegation messages about guilt and sacrifice.

Taylor and Ryan (1988) examined the term fanatic and the ways in which this concept might reflect an
understanding of terrorist behavior. They explored the link between fanaticism and other
psychological processes, such as prejudice and authoritarianism. One kind of fanatical act,
suicide to achieve some political or war end, which may have links with terrorism is discussed.
The following specific examples of fanatical behavior are discussed: self-immolation, Islamic
terrorism, the kamikaze, and the hunger strike. The suicidal attack has been used repeatedly over
centuries by Muslims in 3 Asian Muslim communities to attack militarily superior European and
American colonial powers. A study of such incidents establishes a basis for understanding the
attitudes of Middle Eastern Muslims, provides insights into the dynamics of terrorist attacks,
and illustrates the necessity of political solutions to the problems of terrorism in both Asia
and the Middle East.

What makes terrorists enter a life whose primary goal is the spectacular violation of the
ordinary rules of civilized behavior? What enables them to carry out murderous acts against
innocent people without feeling that they have violated their own standards of moral conduct?
Vital as they are to understanding terrorist behavior, these questions would be hard to
answer even if all terrorists had the same political goals and the same ideological, religious,
and national backgrounds. In order to understand terrorist behavior one must acknowledge and
systematically explore terrorism's complexity and diversity. In so doing, one addresses one of
the most vexing intellectual and political challenges of our time.

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REFERENCES

Becker, S.M. (2001). Meeting the threat of weapons of mass destruction terrorism: toward a
broader conception of consequence management. Mil Med 166 (12 Suppl):13-16.

Post, Jerrold (1990). Terrorist psycho-logic: Terrorist behavior as a product of
psychological forces in Reich, Walter (Ed). Origins of terrorism: Psychologies,
ideologies, theologies, states of mind. Woodrow Wilson Center series (pp. 25-40). New York, NY,
US: Cambridge University Press.

Bandura, Albert (1990). Mechanisms of moral disengagement.
in Reich, Walter (Ed). Origins of terrorism: Psychologies,
ideologies, theologies, states of mind. Woodrow Wilson Center series (pp. 161-191). New York,
NY, US: Cambridge University Press.

Crenshaw, Martha (1990). Questions to be answered, research to be done, knowledge to be applied
in Reich, Walter (Ed). Origins of terrorism: Psychologies, ideologies,
theologies, states of mind. Woodrow Wilson Center series (pp. 247-260). New York, NY, US:
Cambridge University Press.

Reich, Walter (1990). Understanding terrorist behavior: The limits and opportunities of
psychological inquiry in Reich, Walter (Ed). Origins of terrorism: Psychologies, ideologies,
theologies, states of mind. Woodrow Wilson Center series (pp. 261-279). New York, NY, US: Cambridge
University Press.

Toeloelyan, Khachig (1989). Narrative culture and the motivation of the terroristAU: Author
in Shotter, John (Ed); Gergen, Kenneth J. (Ed). Texts of
identity. Inquiries in social construction series, Vol. 2 (pp. 99-118). Thousand Oaks, CA, US:
Sage Publications, Inc.

Groebel, Jo (Ed); Goldstein, Jeffrey H (Ed) (1989). Terrorism: Psychological
perspectives Series of psychobiology. Sevilla, Spain: Publicaciones de la Universidad de Sevilla. 171 pp.IB:

McCauley, Clark R; Segal, Mary E (1989). Terrorist individuals and terrorist groups: The normal psychology of
extreme behavior in Groebel, Jo (Ed); Goldstein, Jeffrey H. (Ed). Terrorism: Psychological
perspectives. Series of psychobiology (pp. 39-64). Sevilla, Spain: Publicaciones de la Universidad
de Sevilla. 171 pp.

Brunet, Louis (1989). The phenomenon of terrorism and its effects upon internal objects/Le
phenomene terroriste et ses effets sur les objets internes. Revue Quebecoise de Psychologie.
Vol 10(1), , pp. 2-15.

Gayraud, Jean-Francois (Apr-Jun 1988). Defining terrorism: Is it possible, is
it desirable?/Definir le terrorisme: Est-ce possible, est-ce souhaitable?
Revue Internationale de Criminologie et de Police Technique. Vol 41(2), , pp.
185-202.

Miller, Reuben (1988). The literature of terrorism. Terrorism. Vol 11(1),
pp. 63-87.

Linn, Ruth (1988). Terrorism, morality and soldiers' motivation to fight:
An example from the Israeli experience in Lebanon. Terrorism. Vol 11(2), pp. 139-149.

Olsson, Peter (Sum 1988). The terrorist and the terrorized: Some psychoanalytic
consideration Journal of Psychohistory. Vol 16(1), pp. 47-60.

Taylor, Maxwell; Ryan, Helen (1988). Fanaticism, political suicide and
terrorism. Terrorism. Vol 11(2), , pp. 91-111.

To search for books on disasters and disaster mental

health topics, leaders, leadership, orgainizations,

crisis intervention, leaders and crises, and related

topics and purchase them online, go to the following url:

https://www.angelfire.com/biz/odochartaigh/searchbooks.html

ROCKY MOUNTAIN REGION DISASTER MENTAL HEALTH NEWSLETTER

MENTAL HEALTH MOMENT February 21, 2003

TERRORIST BEHAVIOR AND PSYCHOLOGICAL FORCES

Terror and Apocalypse Psychological Undercurrents of History