On September 8, national television ran footage of the glittering skyline of New York City during coverage of America's premiere tennis event, the U.S. Open. The occasion, broadcast from Arthur Ashe Stadium, was a spectacular series of firsts: the first women's final played during “prime time,” the first final (men's or women's) played between two African-Americans — and siblings at that — the Williams sisters. New York City was jubilant about hosting this milestone event.
On the morning of September 11, national television showed us that same New York skyline, forever damaged by the terrorist attack on America. So many achievements and accomplishments, including the tennis event the city had hosted just days before, now seemed meaningless in the face of destruction and the overwhelming loss of
Dottie Jeffries is the APsaA's public relations consultant. She has worked with the association since 1998; her projects for APsaA institutes include public relations and marketing in English and Spanish for the Chicago Institute.
lives in New York, in Washington, and in Pennsylvania.
Early that afternoon, APsaA member Alicia Guttman, herself a survivor of the state terror that befell Chile on the 11th of September in 1973, eloquently offered these words of counsel on the APsaA “open line” mailing list a few hours after the heinous acts of terrorism had engulfed us all:
We can feel defenseless [in] the face of evil will, but not necessarily helplessly paralyzed. Can our reinforcement of awareness of the past, of historical processes, of our connections with humanity, our work as an organization, without bureaucracy, without self-serving agendas lead us to some degree of mastery [in] the face of incomprehensible catastrophe?
On vacation when the events of September 11 took place, APsaA president Dick Fox wrote to members on the list:
In spite of the fact that individually we are located throughout the country, the openline has made it possible for us to come together in response to these dreadful events. We all appreciate the direct contributions our members have been able to make to the victims, their families, and communities. It is also important that we continue to come together as a community of colleagues to reaffirm our commitment to our fellow human beings.
Struggling to process the tragic events, the American Psychoanalytic Association — individual members, institutes, and societies — nonetheless reached out and helped those in need.
The Public Information Committee of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute and Society, under the leadership of chair Gail Saltz, immediately recruited volunteers from its membership to offer crisis and grief counseling to any New Yorker in need. The NYPI&S promoted the service by circulating information to the media and to the immediate NYPI&S neighborhood.
The NYPI&S also partnered with Barnes & Noble bookstores, sending counselors to more than a dozen stores in Manhattan to offer counseling during designated store hours for two days. During that time, store visitors were offered free copies of books on grief and loss. “This is an important contribution, something institutes and societies across the country can replicate or expand,” said Fox of the NYPI&S effort.
On September 14, Saltz shared on the APsaA open line list her first-hand account of a day with the firemen of NYPI&S's neighborhood:
I went to our local fire station where they [had] lost nine firefighters. I spent several hours speaking one on one with a number of the men. Initially, they said they [weren't] really “talkers” but then went on to talk up a storm.
They spoke of their horrible losses, their guilt at being relieved it wasn't [they] who died; their need to continue staying and working at the scene despite their fears that they too [would] be injured or killed. They all felt overwhelmed. … Their wives, they said, were scared and it was hard for them to tell their spouses how scared they felt. Some cried, some gave a hug of thanks and all asked me to return soon to listen again. I certainly will.
“Can our reinforcement of awareness of the past, of historical processes, of our connections with humanity, [of] our work as an organization, without bureaucracy, without self-serving agendas, lead us to some degree of mastery [in] the face of incomprehensible catastrophe?
Saltz said to New York members of the association, “If anyone is looking for a place to volunteer their time, these incredible people at all the precincts can use it. Just walk over to whichever one is near you.”
Through the Disaster Psychiatrists Outreach, Arthur Meyerson, who lives near the World Trade Center, volunteered as a senior psychiatrist at the Family Center on Pier 94. He worked with many in need of mental health services. He wrote to the list, “While my analytic thinking didn't do much for me, my analytic experience, particularly my own analysis, allowed for an ease of dealing with rescue fantasies and at times feeling drowned in work and painful affect.”
In response to the attack on the World Trade Center, members of the NYU Psychoanalytic Institute (NYUPI) and its affiliated society, the Psychoanalytic Association of New York (PANY), formed a crisis outreach network with a centralized coordinator.
In addition to numerous efforts by individual members, the NYUPI/PANY Crisis Response Network has performed on-site group intervention and debriefing at several firehouses, hospitals, schools, and corporations, as well as counseling many individuals. The network sent teams to the New York Law School, located very near the World Trade Center, to debrief students and faculty. The network is working closely with Disaster Psychiatrists Outreach as a no-fee referral source for families of victims and others requiring intervention or long-term care.
The South Asian Psychoanalytic Forum of the Psychoanalytic Association of New York and NYU Psychoanalytic Institute began a lecture series in October on “Terror and Aftermath: Perspectives on the World Trade Center Tragedy” as outreach to the NYU Medical Center community and to NYU graduate students and health professionals.
Arnold Richards, editor of JAPA, and other colleagues established the broad-based network of licensed mental health professionals called the New York Disaster Counseling Coalition, for New York's “finest and bravest.” They have each pledged at least one ongoing session-hour per week, for as long as needed, at no charge, to members of the fire department, the police force, and their families.
Vivian Pender, president of the Association for Psychoanalytic Medicine (APM), supported by the district branch of the American Psychiatric Association, headed a disaster team that organized a corps of volunteer psychiatrists who worked shifts to treat the victims, the witnesses, firemen, police, and especially the families of those lost and killed in New York City.
APM also organized a special meeting led by Vamik Volkan, an expert on political psychology and the impact of terrorism, for the greater New York mental health community.
The Long Island Society has made available its roster of analysts offering free consultation and crisis therapy for the relief efforts organized at nearby North Shore University and Long Island Jewish Hillside Hospital.
Steven Marans of the Western New England Psychoanalytic Society coordinated information,
guidelines, and approaches for children and families dealing with the tragic events.
Martin Silverman, president of the Association for Child Psychoanalysis, developed guidelines for parents to use in helping their children cope with the impact of the terrorist attacks. He sent the guidelines out to various mental health organizations and posted them on an online psychoanalytic symposium, as well as making them available to local pediatricians, schools, and parents.
The North Carolina Psychoanalytic Society held a panel presentation for the mental heath community. Paul Brinich, Don Rosenblitt, and others discussed ways of handling children's reactions to the terrorist attacks, the special burden on the mental health profession, and the role of a therapist working with patients traumatized by a terrorist situation. The Lucy Daniels Center also held a successful program, open to the public, on dealing with reactions of children and adults.
In response to the attack, the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute and Society (SFPI) has formed a Crisis Relief Outreach Committee to deal with future disasters. SFPI's Children's Psychological Trauma Center, headed by Gilbert Kliman, now offers online a free electronic copy of My Book About the Attack on America — A Guide and Activity Workbook for Children, Families, and Teachers (). The format of the book allows families to use it in a constructive and therapeutic way to work through anxiety, stress, and depression following the bombings of September 11.
SFPI is also looking at organizing and communicating with its members to offer direct crisis services. Members are considering developing a crisis training seminar (similar to APsaA's media relations training sessions) that might offer continuing education credit through the institute's extension division, possibly to other mental health professionals besides SFPI members. A day or weekend seminar might allow the mental health community to interface with other disciplines on violence, terrorism, or some other relevant topic in the public forum. More immediately, SFPI is examining the possibility of offering mental health services to the local Afghan-American community.
Several members of the Topeka and Kansas City societies were involved with public education about trauma, specifically Helen Stein and Bonnie Buchele.
In Seattle on September 24, there was a joint meeting of all psychoanalytic groups to discuss members' reactions and that of patients to the tragedy; a similar meeting a week later was open to analytically interested therapists.
Jan Van Schaik, president of the Milwaukee Psychoanalytic Society, is taking Red Cross training and hopes to be able to help locally from Milwaukee. Jeff Taxman, a senior candidate, traveled to New York City and helped in the relief effort there.
A coalition of psychoanalysts and psychotherapists associated with the St. Louis Psychoanalytic Society and Institute offered free consultation and treatment to anyone directly affected by the attacks of September 11. The effort was coordinated through the institute's Schiele Clinic, whose network of psychoanalysts and psychotherapists are willing to accept low- and moderate-fee patients under any circumstances appropriate for psychotherapeutic interventions. St. Louis also reached out with its School Crisis Intervention Team, headed by Gail Glenn, who was also instrumental in putting together the Schiele Clinic efforts.
In the wake of the terrorist attacks, the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute and Society's Public Information Committee began a campaign to help the general public handle this tragedy. SFPI&S's consultant, Mary Tressel of Lewis & Summers Public Relations, immediately contacted radio, television, and newspaper outlets to let them know that SFPI's psychology experts were available for interviews.
Tressel also used an Internet service for journalists to publicize the organization's availability nationwide. As a result, SFPI&S president Harriet L. Wolfe was interviewed and quoted in the Sacramento Bee; Mark I. Levy was interviewed by several broadcast outlets and numerous print media; and regional newspapers interviewed Mary C. Lamia, chair of the institute's Public Information Committee, and Mali Mann.
At Levy's suggestion, two local television stations affiliates sponsored grief counseling hotlines for viewers; several SFPI&S members answered confidential calls from the general public.
Kerry Sulkowicz, chair of the APsaA's Committee on Public Information (CPI), observed that the use of a public relations professional is essential to the kind of success achieved by San Francisco psychoanalysts in reaching the public. The committee encourages all institutes to use a local public relations professional, whether on a regular part-time basis or on a project basis, said Sulkowicz.
In his role as medical director of the Lucy Daniels Center for Early Childhood, Donald Rosenblitt developed an invaluable tip sheet, “Helping Children With Their Reactions to the National Crisis.” Sheila Hafter Gray
worked with Rosenblitt to send a revised version to the Pentagon's Health Affairs office.
One of the day care center directors trained by the St. Louis Psychoanalytic Institute, Steven Zwolak, who directs the University City Children's Center in St. Louis, was interviewed on TV about how to speak to children about our national trauma. He, too, was guided by Don Rosenblitt's tip sheet; Zwolak mentioned St. Louis's Schiele Clinic as a resource for families.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch featured Eric J. Nuetzel, director of the St. Louis institute, in an article on how to talk to teenagers about the terrorist attacks. Nuetzel was also interviewed on television about how to speak to children about the terrorist attacks and on radio about “the minds of the terrorists.”
National Public Radio interviewed APsaA member Robert Ursano, Chief of the Department of Psychiatry at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Washington, DC, about the grieving process of the firefighters.
In his capacity as a business management consultant, CPI chair Sulkowicz volunteered his services to CEOs in helping them deal with the trauma their businesses and employees had experienced. In particular, Sulkowicz spent time with the employees of Cantor Fitzgerald, the World Trade Center firm that lost more than 700 employees. In addition to an interview in the New York Times, Sulkowicz reached a number of other media with his messages for business leaders.
Lawrence Blum wrote a timely op-ed piece, “Mourning Our Losses,” which he distributed on the APsaA open line e-mail list and to a
number of newspapers. To date it remains unpublished, but it has been enormously useful as a framework for understanding our reactions to the events of September 11.
The Austin American Statesman called upon Deborah Peel to write an op-ed article on the emotional trauma of the terrorist attacks. When posting “Emotional Ground Zero — How Can We Recover?” to the open line list, Peel remarked, “I offer it in the hopes it might stimulate you to write for your city and help the public learn about therapy and how it works.”
The Western New England Psychoanalytic Society's Marans was interviewed by a number of media in his role as director of the Center for Children Exposed to Violence.
These endeavors are not just for the public's sake. As Leon Hoffman eloquently pointed out to one of the many reporters with whom he spoke following the attacks, “The more one can participate, the more one feels one's spirits rejuvenated.” Probably every psychoanalyst can better cope with the trauma of September 11 by drawing upon psychoanalytic skills and personal reserves in efforts to engage their communities and their world.
“In addition to being helpful, I think our pro-active outreach counters our own feelings of helplessness,” said Sulkowicz.
After this article was prepared for publication, we learned more about APsaA groups' and individuals' responses to the attacks. New information and stories will be posted on the members-only section of the APsaA Web site and updated periodically.