Written
by Suzanne Marcus, M.A., LMFT
When New York City and the Pentagon were assaulted in September, the counselors at Health Resources EAP knew we would face an enormous call for our services. We expected phone calls from distraught employees of those companies we serve who do business or are based in New York, from people with family, friends, or colleagues who were missing or known to have died, and from other employees and their family members around the country who were not directly affected by the disaster but who were feeling traumatized nonetheless.
Our predictions proved correct. We counseled the family of a deceased employee, the wife of a Flight 11 passenger, and an employee whose work it was to offer help to families who lost a loved one on one of the hijacked planes. Numerous calls came in from people reporting insomnia, anxiety attacks, and distractibility. Managers called, asking for guidance in handling their employees’ and their own fears. We strategized as a team on ways to counsel people in this bizarre new landscape where the world felt terrifying and people described what seemed to be a collective loss of equilibrium. We quickly drafted and distributed flyers on many aspects of new problems now facing employees, managers, and their families. We suggested techniques for explaining the national events to children. We urged the people who called to take time to be with those they love and trust. And again and again we listened to people’s stories.
As professionals who are knowledgeable and trained to intervene in a crisis, we were able to draw on our experience and the prevailing wisdom about human response to trauma when offering our help. We advised people on ways to take care of themselves, and how to cope when memories arose of previous traumatic events in their lives. Our clients expressed gratitude for the help and some relief that their reactions fell into some sort of already-understood categories. We knew, though, that as the repercussions of the terrorist attacks evolved, so too would our clinical understanding of what people needed; we knew there was a lot we were about to learn.
How to navigate others through territory one hasn’t even charted oneself? Joe Koscis and Bob Lenhardt are two of the EAP consultants who ran trauma debriefing sessions for managers and employees at NYC and Boston-based client companies. The companies who requested these sessions tended to be those hit hardest by the terrorism, whether by financial loss, building proximity, or death. Both Joe and Bob are seasoned clinicians who have conducted many such debriefings in the past, and both describe these post-terrorist attack sessions as very different from their usual work. Group participants, they say, were honest and emotionally expressive in a way they’ve hardly seen. Joe was struck not only by the intensity of the participation, but by the sheer amount of participation: nearly one hundred percent of the standing-room-only session attendees spoke to the group, and there wasn’t the usual pocket of skeptical attendees who tend to hang back and remain silent.
Joe, Bob, and the other EAP counselors involved in these sessions tell of the gratitude the participants express — gratitude for the chance simply to be together with familiar people who have been through the same painful experiences, and to give voice to their feelings. They say a sense of relief is also discernible in these sessions, as people who had harbored emotions that felt overwhelming realize in sharing their stories that they in fact can tolerate these emotions, and that other people can, too.
In a crisis, people turn to what feel like stable forces -- to trusted friends and family members, time-tested institutions, favorite and enduring works of art. EAP counselors, like most Americans, are struggling to make meaning during these unsteady times. We’re finding a measure of stability by re-learning old and trusted lessons. Especially in a crisis, we’re remembering, people crave the chance to talk, listen, and simply be together. When the world feels irrational, and people lose hold of their sense of selfhood, they can find grounding in the experience of human connection.
This article, written by EAP consultant Suzanne Marcus, M.A., LMFT, draws material from interviews with Robert Lenhardt, LICSW, Joe Koscis, LICSW, and numerous additional conversations and meetings with other Health Resources EAP staff.
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