Psychology of Safety and Resistance to Terrorism

Zinchenko, Yu. P. Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia Federal Scientific Center of Psychological and Interdisciplinary Research, Moscow, Russia

In present epoch the mankind has collided with new global threat -terrorism. Having historical roots in the various social phenomena of the past, the terrorism today has found independent existence and various forms, representing constant threat of public and personal safety. The terrorism, being a complex phenomenon, has the various parties among which its psychological component acts as the major. The psychological component of terrorism disintegrates onto four major components, namely psychology of terrorism, psychology of counteraction to terrorism, psychological preparation of experts who are taking part in various situations connected with terrorism and the psychological help to victims of terrorism. Some questions concerning specified aspects of terrorism are considered below.

Socio-Psychological Factors in the Development of Terrorism[1]

The working out of socio-psychological models and methods of increasing the effectiveness of antiterrorist activities implies two levels of work:

• prevention: the analysis of conditions favouring the proliferation of terrorist "ideology" and terrorist attacks;
• optimization of the leverage in the course of a concrete antiterrorist action.

Among the main socio-psychological problems that form the basis for the development and manifestation of terrorism, researchers name the following ones: general social instability at the time of social changes, which causes a number of new social phenomena (previously uncommon), like changeable public opinion that expresses the positions of different social groups; a large number of mass social movements with the radical vector, the rise inside these movements of "risk-groups" with tendencies to extremism.

Therefore, studies that put forward the scientifically-based recommenda­tions for the development of methods of correction of such ideology are highly urgent. These recommendations may concern different aspects of social reality:

• explaining (through the mass media) the risks of the tendency to look for "the enemy figure", especially in the groups of the young;
• providing the adequate interpretation of the correlation between such factors as globalization and terrorism;
• open discussion of the present-day social problems, for instance, the employment of the young, material inequality in the modern society (causes, solutions, etc.);
• work with marginal groups (talking about understanding the criteria for social values, the correlation between freedom and law);
• attention to the general problems of political culture (for instance, the possibility of resolving social conflicts in a nonviolent way) in educational system and the mass media;
• purposive formation of positive models of behaviour.

The specific transformations in the personality and the world view of a person involved in terrorism are the subject of research for a number of socio-humanitarian sciences, including psychology.

The formation, structuring and functioning of the complex psychological structure, referred to as "the world view" in A.N. Leontiev's School of Psychology, of a person involved in terrorist organizations are very similar to the world view of a controlled person who is characterized by either single dependency traits or the dependency in the psychopathological sense of the word. The technology of making a terrorist is not unique, being one of the modern technologies that structure the world view and self-identification of a controlled person, which may be used as the basis for the construction of theoretical models and practical procedures of diagnosing "the risk-group" members, for effective preventive work as well as for the correction, rehabilitation and formation of the system of psychologically-oriented monitoring of antiterrorist activity.

In search of the scientifically-based psychological criteria for diagnosing and classifying the ways of construction of "the world view", self-identification, motivation and formation of the pathological forms of social and psychological adaptation, typical of the "risk-group" members, let us refer to the following personality traits, revealed through theoretic analysis, characterizing a person who is or may be involved in terrorist activity:

• Preference for the illusive and compensatory way of fulfilling personal needs, rather than the active and constructive one.
• Tendency to find quick and "final" solutions to complicated problems.
• The primitive mythologization and symbolization of the objective activity with the accent on a "list of enemies".
• The utmost, terminal and feigned dramatization of the situation.
• A low or purposively-lowered by means of psychotechnologies, threshold of aggressive behaviour.
• High impulsiveness and inclination to prompt actions.
• The heroization of terrorist activity with the compulsory element of sacrifice.
• Primitivism and rigidity of the world view and cognitive styles.
• High suggestibility.
• The specific state of mass consciousness and mentality:
• the "undeveloped" tolerance and lack of standards of conducting productive negotiations;
• conviction of the effectiveness of acts of violence and in one's right to perform them;
• the "metamorphoses" in the historical memory of different ethnic groups, political parties, etc.
• lack of adequate ideas about democracy, in particular, of human rights.
• the binary and archaic world view

These problems require careful consideration so that the role of each factor in the formation of terrorist ideology should be revealed.

The analysis of the existing researches reveals that terrorism is a multi-disciplinary problem and psychological as well. Involvement in terrorism is based on the manipulation of the dramatically actualized needs for identification of the considerable part of the population, which must be a subject of a relevant research.

The inner subjective conviction of the necessity of service to some absolute, supreme and unique truth, and, as a result, fanaticism and readiness to establish the truth by all means, is the motivational, value and ideological basis of terrorism.

As the terrorist absorbs the ideology of the organization s/he belongs to, s/he adopts the absolutist rhetoric. The outward things are viewed though the prism of simple and unambiguous characteristics: one's own people and the aliens, the right and the wrong. Doubts are neglected.

One of the possible sources of formation of a terrorist organization is radicalism. Not all radicals become terrorists, but many terrorists started out with radicalism. Revealing the psychological conditions under which radicalism transforms into extremism is the priority task.

Radicalism is usually connected with the ideas and concepts of the fundamental and radical changes in the existing socio-political relations in a society. The existing social relations are negated and substituted with the alternative ones, presented as the most right and unique way out of the current unjust and unacceptable socio-political situation.

Researchers distinguish the following five primary functions of radicalism:

• informative (evidence of the unstable social processes);
• reducing social tensions;
• pressure upon political institutions;
• correction of social and political ideas;
• stimulation of social changes;
• achieving goals often different from the declared ones.

The psychologically-correct answer to the question why some people wish to get involved in terrorist activities may partly contain the answer to another question - what they do (or are allowed to do) as terrorists, and how they get and retain motivation for the involvement in terrorist attacks and other activities.

People who become members of terrorist groups come from different strata of society. And so the motivations that determine their radical spirits are different. At the same time, they all undergo the personality transformation and acquire certain dominating traits. First of all, they have aggressiveness, which develops in part as a reaction to frustration - the situation of being prevented from satisfying one's needs and wants. They are prone to externalization - making the external factors responsible for their failures and inadequate behaviour. The need for affiliation (involvement into a particular group) is one of the basic. Due to the need for affiliation, a person acquires a sense of sameness and a feeling of socialization. This explains the fact why a lot of members of terrorist organizations are people who come from broken families or used to have problems adapting to the existing social institutions (for instance, lost their jobs or didn't have any). A sense of isolation that often arises in such situations results in the marginalization of the person's values and concepts, which leads to the transformation of the original need for affiliation and search for another kindred group. Thus all terrorists have a strong desire to be involved in a group of identical people and to acquire a sense of sameness. People don't become terrorists right away. This is often preceded by the loss of life values, apathy and depression, caused by social disadaptation.

Researchers name the following key factors as the ground for the formation of the personality of a terrorist:

• early socialization;
• disorders of narcissism type;
• conflict situations;
• personal contacts with the members of terrorist organizations.

As a rule, the formation of the personality of a terrorist starts with "a catalyst event" - an accident in which the terrorist-to-be suffers from or sees an outrage, injustice or unpunished villainy. This early stage of the personality transformation into a terrorist proceeds as psychologically-unnoticeable, but has a huge impact on the personality of the future terrorist. Over and over again, the accident recurs to the person's memory. Like a chemical catalyst, it stimulates the formation of terrorist personality traits through the process of personal identification with the victims - the fellow countryman, members of the same social group or relatives (that sparks blood feud) and even with oneself as the victim of "the villains". The autobiographies, written by terrorist, show that the more the person gets involved in terror, the more vivid, horrible and dramatic, artistically and mystically detailed "the catalyst event" becomes (as compared with the first recurrences).

However, terrorists seldom articulate, that is express in words, the same answers to the question, what attractions and self-profits they see in the involvement in a terrorist group. The analysis of the answers they give reveals that they are motivated by such things as:

• power and might.
• high status.
• the feeling of fellowship and strong self-identification.
• excitement, delight and nearly narcotic ecstasy from assuming a new role and a new life.
• increasing admiration and reverence for the activity of the supporting community after joining it.

(Sometimes) the absence of need to care about money.

Conception of "Predisposing Events"

It is highly probable that the further elaboration of the conception of "predisposing events" which is based on the individual experience and specificity of the cognitive sphere of the personality will be very resulting. As the subject of research this conception has the following:

• Personal experience, character and level of influence of the antecedent events relevant to the context of the process of involvement in terrorism (for example, throwing stones at the police (or other security forces) officers may set up a base for the formation of the emotional gist of the condition of protest and the accumulation of relevant feelings, including those at the emotional level (through fear and pleasant excitement, etc.), the level of knowledge and understanding of conflict situations and their underlying reasons preceding the energetic actions, the level of susceptibility to the attractions of one's possible active involvement in terrorism.
• The specificity of one's early experience relevant to the process (personal experience of being a victim of the security service officers' actions, or self-perception as a victim through self-identification with a tormented and victimized group or community).
• The structure and ascendancy of public opinion inside the relevant group, including opinion about the consequences of joining a terrorist organization. Involvement in terrorism is regarded by a person in correlation with the system of values shared within the community. For example, people who carry and fire weapons may be treated with high respect in the community.
• The specificity of socialization in mature age that may either impel or impede the person's involvement in terrorism. For example, many of suicide-terrorists are single men between the ages of 17 to 22. They have neither obligations, nor responsibility, nor grief over parting their families. So they are easier targets for the enlisters.
• Dissatisfaction, loss of illusions, the rejection of self or of the actual system of activity. This trait is often construed by the analysts as the consequence of some personal defect, vulnerability and proneness to being easily emotionally hurt. In the context of our discourse, it is relevant to speak about the feeling of strong dissatisfaction that makes a person vulnerable to external influences which may lead him/her away from the current state of dissatisfaction. As a result, the person may find himself gradually and more and more involved in terrorism.
• The influence on the psyche of the antagonistic alternatives and prospects of being more or less intensely involved in the terrorist organization activities. For instance, the duties of membership of an individual involved are always determined by the leader who distributes the roles and creates the psychological climate which may happen to be unbearably tough or unpredictably changeable. Besides, the individual may have a fear of punishment and public prosecution that may impede and at some stage put an end to his/her involvement in illegal activities. All in all, there may be found different factors, including the individual's previous experience and the peculiarities of socialization that may be naturally transmitted to the fear of losing a job, a family and the seizure of the source of revenue, etc.

The majority of experts agree in opinion that it would be quite wrong to look for any kind of universal archetypes of "catalyst events", even for the members of the same terrorist group. It's all individual. People acquire the universal traits of terrorist personality at a later stage.

The problem of safety traditionally implies two main aspects related to terrorism: the criminal aspect and the aspect of security threats, including national, local and international security. However, the present-day reality calls for the global approach to the problem of safety on the planet scale. For terrorists, all people are divided into two groups: "Us" and "Others", the rest of the world. Terrorists' violence is maximized against all "Others", who are The Enemy. Terrorist believe that neither of the groups is supposed to justify themselves.

To provide adequate responses to terrorism, it is absolutely necessary to have the right understanding of the motives of terrorist organizations. In practice, it turns out to be a rather difficult task, as the goals of all nationalistic and terrorist groups are rather ideal in the beginning and not always supposed to be realized by applying force.

It is important take account of the fact that struggle against terrorism can not be measured by the traditional success criteria. Short term successes may appear to have negative consequences in the long term. Some terrorist groups have long term strategic goals and they assume that some temporary failures may happen. That is why difficulties in preventing terrorist attacks should not be perceived as failures in the context of the long-term struggle.

Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis

The multiple-factor nature of terrorism requires putting forward a comprehensive model that would take account of the impact of each factor on the origin and development of this social phenomenon. The working out of such a model is the sine qua non of achieving success in the field of antiterrorist activities and requires that different existing approaches to this problem be taken into account since altogether they reveal the driving forces behind terrorism. The frustration-aggression hypothesis takes the utmost account of the interaction between external (political and social) and internal (psychological) factors in explaining the essence of terrorism. According to the frustration-aggression hypothesis, a terrorist's behavior is his/her answer to the frustration of different political, economic, and personal needs/goals. The hypothesis can play a fundamental role in creating the aforesaid model inasmuch as it can reveal the interference of external and internal factors. This hypothesis is relevant because it points out the external factors as triggers and makes it possible to understand how risk groups arise. Other psychological theories emphasize extra features which, when influenced by the external factors, form a personality that can be involved into the sphere of influence of different terrorist and extremist organizations as well as point out the personality traits that get transformed into aggression when frustration occurs.

Individual Characteristics

• Physiological parameters. If one accepts that the neurophysiological model of aggression is realistic, there is no basis for the argument that terrorism could be eliminated if its social causes were eliminated. One cannot deny the existence of individual terrorists whose behavior is determined mostly by their physiology. Counteraction against this kind of terrorists is more rational if based on revealing and controlling their behavior, rather than controlling their ideology and social factors.
• Machiavellism. The desire to manipulate their victims, the press, the public, and the authorities is typical of terrorists. Researchers note that it's enough for the potential terrorist to only see that terrorism has worked for others in order to become aggressively aroused.
• Narcissism. Terrorism is a specific manifestation of narcissistic rage in the context of narcissistic injury. Narcissistic rage manifests itself in repeated attempts to acquire or maintain power or control by intimidation. Narcissism can also manifest itself through the desire to protect one social group from others, be they real or perceived enemies. It should be noticed that this desire can be reinforced by inadequate governmental measures taken in response to terrorist groups' activities and is one of the fundamental motives that can draw a large number of people to such groups.
• Idealism. Well-educated young people may join terrorist groups out of their genuine political or religious convictions. People who have idealistic views on life are more inclined to experience disappointment and, consequently, frustration than those who are down-to-earth.
• Fragmented personal identity. It is typical of terrorist group members to have no complete personal identity and be guided by contradictory values, views, and purposes. Such an individual would go to extremes to achieve his/her goals and is likely to respond even more violently to the police's or other security forces' counteraction.

Methodic techniques for the effective revealing of risk groups are aimed at revealing the aforementioned individual characteristics. Some of them (e.g. narcissistic injuries) can be discovered through studying biographical data, whereas others can only be revealed through the external observation of terrorists' behavior.

External Factors

• Traditions. Family and cultural traditions of violent protests serve as the ground for radicalization of the young towards social problems. Schools, religious groups, and other social institutions, where people may encourage extremism, contribute to the appearance of terrorist groups and the process of recruitment. The most potent form of terrorism stems from those individuals who are bred to hate, from generation to generation, as in Northern Ireland and the Basque country.
• Social conditions. Terrorism rarely occurs on the basis of political or religious feud alone. One can always find more deep causes of the terrorist threat. The causes are social inequality, discrimination, political weakness, poverty and deprivation, and the feeling of injustice resulting in despair. All these create external conditions which favor the appearance or revivification of terrorist groups. In-depth study of the process of recruitment to IRA shows that the main causes of today's civil unrests are social and economic conditions. Political causes are the basis for recruitment into the lower echelons of terrorist organizations.
• Fundamentalism. This factor is much more complex than just a simple explanation of terrorist aspirations as the exercise of the sharia law. Ideological extremism, be it religious or national, is very appealing since on the one hand it enables one to pour out his/her anger, frustration and despair, while on the other hand it promises a Utopian future in this life or after it. Even if the ideology of a terrorist group is not based on religion, the group, nevertheless, is prone to the influence of terrorist extremists. Terrorists are motivated by both ideology and the human element. But in no circumstances should double standards be demonstrated. It means that antiterrorist activities must be carried out in conformity with the existing law. Even if a terrorist group is not founded on religion, it, nevertheless, is prone to the influence of extremists who claim to be the divine authority and justify and forgive any violent acts against innocent people.
• Accelerating factors. Besides the main social and economic factors, there are extra ones that catalyze the transition to violence, such as inadequate governmental measures taken in response to civil unrests and terrorist attacks. For example, the war of the Spanish government against ETA has had a negative impact not only on the Basque territory but on terrorists' activities all around the world as well. The Israeli pressure on Palestine has had a similar negative effect resulting in the intensification of terrorist activity. In the case of IRA, the catalyst was the transformation of orderly protest demonstrations for civil rights into sanguinary riots. IRA declared itself to be the only protector of the Republicans' rights. It is obvious that terrorists will always look for ways and means to provoke the government into taking inadequate measures. Dissatisfaction with such measures becomes the basis for recruiting new members to terrorist groups. Potential terrorist group members often start out as sympathizers of the group. From sympathizer, one moves to passive supporter. Often those who are at odds with the law also join terrorists. The individual, often with the help of a family member or friend with terrorist contacts, gradually turns to terrorism. Membership in a terrorist group, however, is highly selective.

Counteraction measures that prevent risk groups from getting transformed into potential terrorist organizations

Control of Ideology

Ideology is a belief or a set of values and principles through which a group of people identifies themselves as well as their goals and objectives. Ideology is classified into several types: separatist, religious, liberal, anarchic, communist, conservative, fascist, and organized crime.

Some types of ideology - especially separatist - may include some elements of history coupled with half-mythic and supernatural beliefs. What is important to ideology is that it has a motivational power and sets out the framework of activity. It should be noticed that the group's ideology and its members' personal beliefs may differ. For instance, if the leaders of a political group usually have a concrete ideology with clear political goals, other members of the group may join it out of group solidarity or dislike of a "common enemy". Understanding the motivation and ideology of a terrorist group would make it possible to organize an effective ideological struggle against it. One of the top priorities of that struggle is to persuade the population not to help terrorists, to refuse armed conflicts, and to persuade the terrorists to substitute alternative nonviolent methods of achieving their goals for violence.

In case of ideological victory, terrorists may count on extensive support from the population, risk groups essentially. Terrorists and their sympathizers share common values and views. An intensive work with sympathizers at the ideological level is needed so as to weaken the sympathizers' financial aid and reduce the number of recruitment sources.

Schooling and Upbringing

High emphasis must be placed on developing national and cultural tolerance at school. In Northern Ireland, the abolition of the system that had divided schools into protestant and catholic ones played a crucial role in demolishing terrorists' connections with the public.

The Media

Numerous publications may polarize the public, create polar opinions, and provoke risk groups into protest and violence. Terrorists seek the opportunity to use the media to achieve their own goals. Only through control of the media in this field can negative consequences be prevented and an innovative strategy, that would make it impossible for extremists to take an informational initiative, to be implemented.

Particularities of work with victims of terrorist attacks and emergency situations

The working out of socio-psychological models and methods of increasing effectiveness of antiterrorist activity, together with the analysis of conditions favoring the proliferation of terrorist "ideology" and terrorist attacks, implies an optimization of the leverage in the course of a concrete antiterrorist action. The selection and usage of adequate retaliatory measures requires taking into account the psychographics of those who suffered terrorist attacks. It mainly concerns survivors and specialists who deal with the consequences of emergency situations caused by such attacks.

Psychographics of survivors of emergency situations

Besides injuries, emergency situations cause psychological stress.

Below are listed the main parameters of an\ emergency situation that influence the psychological stress intensity).

• hostility of the situation (danger to life, physical and mental integrity of the individual or that of his/her relatives)
• suddenness;
• intensity of negative effects;
• long duration of negative effects;
• ambiguity and unpredictability of the situation;
• impossibility of taking control of the situation (the situation develops against the individual's will);
• lack of social support;
• aversion to his/her own behavior in an emergency situation;
• incompatibility of the new experience with habitual reality;
• impossibility of explaining the situation rationally.

Let us characterize the most frequent consequences of emergency situations.

• Changes in the affective sphere. Disturbances of the emotional sphere may manifest themselves in emotional "dullness", depression, dismal mood, and inability of experiencing joy, love, and creative enthusiasm. One constantly feels helpless and doesn't know what s/he is supposed to do. Intrapersonal conflicts and crises become more intense. The feeling of shame and guilt arises; the effect of survivor's guilt is widespread among survivors: the person blames himself/herself for surviving the traumatic situation that cost others their lives.
• Changes in the cognitive sphere. The survivor's memory deteriorates, s/he becomes amnesiac and cannot recall the traumatic events and experiences problems with concentration.
• Changes in behavior. The person's behavior becomes illogical, inconsistent and unpredictable. Excessive activeness and hypervigilance (detecting threats becomes the person's dominant trait) may be observed. Innocuous but sudden stimuli may produce a reaction of fear: the person starts behaving in a way as if s/he were in danger.

Psychological reactions of specialists, who deal with the consequences of terrorist attacks, as the result of work with victims of emergency situations

The first people who get in contact with the victims of accidents and terrorist attacks are rescuers and secret services agents.

Meeting a person with a traumatic experience always produces strong personal reactions. Taking account of such reactions is an indispensable condition for an effective professional activity of those who come to the rescue of survivors. It is also an essential parameter of protecting doctors and their patients.

In the second half of the XXth century psychologists started examining the reactions of helpers (rescuers in the first place) to mass traumas and deaths.

A characteristic example of such examination is the work by M.M. Reshetnikov and his co-authors who investigated the consequences of a train crash in Ufa that snuffed out hundreds of lives. The examination of the rescue teams’ members revealed that 98 % were terrified by what they saw, 62 % said they felt embarrassed and felt weakness in their extremities, 20 % noted that soon after arriving at the site the felt nearly unconscious. When analyzing in retrospect their psychical and psychological state during salvage operations, 100 % of the respondents remembered their numerous somatic disturbances such as dizziness, headache, pain in the stomach, nausea, vomit, and stool disorder. These symptoms persisted even when the rescuers had a rest. In succeeding days, 54 % complained of various sleep disturbances (drowse in the daytime, insomnia at night, and interrupted sleep with nightmares), hyperirritability, and depression.

The following characteristic psychological and psychosomatic reactions of the rescuers and secret service agents were described:

• Irritability: the person feels weak and can't do anything; the effectiveness of his/her activity decreases; every now and again causeless grudge against somebody or something arises.
• Tachycardia: the person knows that s/he is in very good health but feels pain in the chest and symptoms of heart attack.
• Nervous tremor.
• Inability to act rationally: the person suddenly loses the ability to exercise his/her duty normally and can't remember his/her official responsibilities.
• Bursting into tears.
• Anxiety: the person takes up different activities and cannot differentiate important from unimportant.
• Exhaustion: suddenly, the person feels devastated, cannot take a single step, and wants to sit down. Every single muscle aches.
• Pestering: the person feels the need to talk and to share his/her terrible experience with somebody. S/he tends to retell the same story over and over again.
• Escape reaction.
• Despair: the person loses his/her self-control, breaks down, feels
  dizzy, and wants to hide in a secluded place.

Specialists use different methods to prevent and neutralize the negative psychological consequences of work with victims of emergency situations. One of the most spread methods is debriefing. Participation in constant rescue operations may cause deformations in one's professional activity and negative changes in one's mental health. In the modern literature these negative consequences are commonly referred to as emotional burnout.

The burnout phenomenon. Those whose duty is to help people in emergency situations, and especially those who constantly deal with other people's grief and sufferings, sooner or later experience psychological problems that influence their emotional state and professional behavior. This is the so-called emotional burnout syndrome.

The emotional burnout syndrome has three components:

• The feeling of emotional exhaustion. As emotional exhaustion accumulates, emergency service workers feel that they can't devote themselves to people as much as before.
• The development of negative attitude towards victims. This starts with negative remarks about victims in conversations with colleagues. Then, emergency service workers begin feeling a strong dislike for victims, which they try to repress, but don't really succeed. That results in fits of anger and open hostility. Maslach refers to this process as "dehumanization" or "depersonalization".
• The development of negative attitude towards the job and self. Maslach calls this component "the reduced sense of personal accomplishment".

Professional and personal training of emergency service workers involved in work with victims of terrorist attacks and emergency situations

The personality traits of an emergency service worker.

Providing help to people in emergency situations is a high risk and high stress job. On the one hand, victims of terrorist attacks and other emergency situations require special treatment and care as well as undivided attention. On the other hand, emergency service workers who work with them may be subjected to health risks, both physical and mental. In this connection, a complex psychological approach to emergency service workers is indispensable. Such an approach should be directed to: firstly, the development of high tolerance as the way of interaction with victims; and secondly, the prevention of possible health risks.

The problem of interaction between emergency service workers and victims has two important aspects: 1) the development of personality traits characterizing a tolerant person in an emergency service worker 2) the formation of tolerant attitude towards patients.

General approach to the patient: a victim should be regarded as "a subject", but not as "an object". A formed attitude towards victims is a key factor.

Communication with the patient: one of the most important aspects of the "doctor-patient" relations is the ability to talk to the patient correctly.

To a great extent, the effectiveness of work with a patient relies on the patient's confidence level, which is, for the most part, determined by the doctor's ability to communicate correctly with him/her. Important information about the patient may be collected through the following: superfluous information given by the patient to the personnel, introductory commentaries and physical appearance: clothes, hair style, gesticulation, mimicry, intonation, facial expression, talkativeness, irritability, hostility, aggressiveness, depression, need for being accompanied by relatives.

Coping with the negative psychological consequences of long contact with victims of emergency situations

At some stage, any practitioner has to develop psychological protection against being too emotional about the sufferings of patients. After taking emotionally and to heart patients' sufferings, deaths, operations, bleedings and mental disorders, etc. at the beginning of working life, doctors, nurses and support personnel acquire some emotional resistibility with time. Although a certain proportion of emotional resistibility is necessary and vital, a specialist should retain the ability to perceive a patient as a person who is suffering and have respect for the dead. There is a danger of the development of professional psychological deformations: in particular, treating patients with indulgent disdain, aggression and ignoring their feelings.

To cope with the emotional crisis, emergency service workers may apply the same methods as they do when treating patients. W. Kirk suggests using the following "surviving tool kit":

• Accept what happened.

To accept the reality of what happened, three strategies may be applied:

• Don't isolate yourself from others, thinking that there is something wrong with you as your reactions seem to be improper;
• Share your feelings with someone from your family, who will to listen to you and accept your tears, anger and apathy. Tell him/her about the negative experience you went through.
• Discuss your feelings with your colleagues. They are likely to have similar feelings. You will help each other to put up with the reality.
• Accept your reactions and feelings.

Some of your feelings and reactions may be completely new to you, but they are familiar to those who have gone through the same crisis. Even the feelings that you regard as strange and incongruous or "wrong" and "evil" are quite natural in the situation you went through.

• Learn a lesson from what happened.

The situation of crisis has opened a new life dimension to you and taught you something new. Take advantage of this knowledge in your future life and work.

• Direct your feelings at something new.

The first three steps will help you to release the energy that has previously been used to depress your feelings. This energy may go into other feelings. The condition of crisis may lead to sole-searching, make your life even richer and broaden your horizons.

If a specialist finds it impossible to cope with the crisis on his own, he should turn to a psychologist or a psychotherapist for help.

The training program for emergency service workers, providing help to victims of terrorist attacks, may include the following: holding debriefings, Balint groups, trainings, aimed at the development of cultural sensitivity and the doctor-patient communication skills, and trainings aimed at preventing stress and emotional burnout.

Debriefing is a group method of urgent psychological help to people, who have experienced a traumatic event. For the first time, it was introduced shortly after World War I to provide crisis therapy to victims of catastrophes. It has been widely used ever since. A debriefing is an arranged meeting for people, who experienced the same extreme and stressful event, where they discuss it (including the rescuers and medical staff involved in work with the victims). The purpose of debriefing is to minimize the psychological harm of the stressful event. Debriefing is a method of crisis intervention and prophylaxis, which, however, can't completely prevent the consequences of the stressful and traumatic experience, but can reduce them. It contributes to a better understanding of the causes and to making reasonable decisions. This method allows solving the following problems:

• "psychological ventilation" - the analysis of feelings and emotional reactions;
• the improvement of the cognitive processing of the experience through understanding the event and personal reactions to it;
• reducing individual and group emotional strain;
• escaping from the feeling that one's emotional reactions are pathological and unique;
• mobilization of internal and external resources to cope with the consequences of stress;
• preparation for coping with long-term symptoms and reactions;
• determining the methods of further help in case of need.

It is recommended to take part in a debriefing every time after experiencing a stressful and traumatic incident. The optimal time for a debriefing varies, according to different sources.

A debriefing may be held under the guidance of a psychologist or a person from the team of rescuers - a doctor or an officer - who has received appropriate training (and is familiar with the methods of working with a group and with the problems related to experiencing a trauma or grief). A debriefing should be held by one person or together with an assistant. Any secluded place isolated from outsiders is appropriate for holding a debriefing.

The number of participants is 10 to 15 people. The duration is 2 hours. If there are more than 15 participants, it is better to work simultaneously in small groups. Debriefings are held without a break - that is why the participants are recommended to take some food and go to the toilet before it starts.

The simplest ways to cope with stress are relaxation techniques, which should be mastered by all rescuers involved in work with victims of emergency situations.

Relaxation techniques are methods, aimed at creating conditions for the development of skills at voluntary self-regulation of the physiological and mental functions. The best-known techniques of relaxation were elaborated in the 1920s and include autogenic training and progressive muscle relaxation.

Progressive muscle relaxation is a series of simple exercises. An exercise consists in, first, tensing a muscle group for a few seconds and then releasing it. Tensing and releasing various muscle groups throughout the body produces a deep state of physical relaxation, accompanied by a feeling of warmth and heaviness in muscles. Physical relaxation is proved to be effective against negative emotions.

Progressive muscle relaxation is capable of relieving a variety of conditions caused by stress, such as insomnia, high blood pressure, neurosis and headaches. Progressive muscle relaxation improves a person's ability to have control over mental state, enables the formation of internal control devices for the management of mental functions and creates the necessary prerequisites for mastering more complicated techniques of psychical regulation.

Autogenic training is a relaxation technique aimed at balancing homeostasis, disordered by stress. Autogenic training includes two steps, the lower and the higher. The lower step teaches you to create a feeling of warmth and heaviness throughout your body and manage your heart and breathing rate. The higher step is directed to creating states of trance of different levels. The fundamental mechanism of autogenic training consists in the formation of strong links between orders to the self and creation of certain states in different psycho physiological systems.

Progressive muscle relaxation requires no special training and can be practiced by any person at once. As for autogenic training, it requires previous training and serves as a more active way of affecting one's psycho physiological and emotional state.

Apart from relaxation, breathing exercises and the elementary self-massage skills should also be mastered by emergency service workers as the effective ways of reducing stress.

Very often, a burnt out person doesn't notice his state of mental health, and the symptoms become more obvious to his colleagues. The more the syndrome progresses, the less the person wishes to recognize it. That is why it is important to reveal the problem and take appropriate measures in time. At an early stage, a simple talk with an understanding colleague may be a great help for a burnt out person, who needs help and support, but not criticism and conflicts. Burnout is not unavoidable. It can be prevented or reduced by taking well-timed measures. Many strategies that help to cope with burnout serve at the same time as its preventive measures. The preventive strategies may be divided into several levels, according to what is the focus of attention: individual workers, labour management or the organization structure as a whole.

At the level of the organization as a whole, the strategies for preventing burnout consist in a more exact and consistent formulation of the policies and goals. It is indispensable to arrange trainings for employees and research new areas. Help and care should be provided to victims in cooperation with their families, social circle (community) and partner-organizations. It is important to work out the effective mechanisms for group and organization ways of solving problems. Employees should be encouraged to work individually and to be involved in collective decisions.

The effective labour management plays a great role in preventing stress and burnout too. Hard and ungrateful work should be distributed in equal proportions among the personnel. Employees should carry out different types of work, so that one person won't be loaded with all work. The schedule of work should include a balanced alternation of easier and harder tasks, with the time for breaks, during which workers could relax and socialize.

Debriefings, trainings, Balint groups and other meetings should be arranged to discuss ways of resolving conflicts, making collective decisions and reducing stress. In addition, trainings, aimed at self-knowledge and the development of tolerance, produce positive effect. They help the participants to understand what things in their job provoke the feelings of anger, fault or frustration in them, and to work out the adequate forms of interaction with patients.

It is highly important for the head of the organization to:

• give the personnel the opportunity for acting out the feelings that they gain when helping victims of catastrophes;
• create the system of feedback within the organization: from the lower ranks to the senior, and backwards (for instance, very important are regular meetings with the personnel where arising problems are discussed and feedback about the effectiveness of work is given);
• control the level of the personnel's emotional strain and take appropriate measures when it becomes too high.

At the level of the personnel, preventive strategies include:

• setting realistic and achievable goals so that the personnel's excessive demands to themselves can be diminished;
• providing feedback to the employees about the effectiveness of their work;
• providing trainings for the employees and opportunities to raise the level of one's skills within the organization so as to increase labour efficiency;
• teaching anti-stress techniques;
• informing new-comers about the job-related stresses;
• regular checks on the level of emotional strain to reveal the burnt out workers;
• helping employees to solve personal and job-related problems;
• creating support teams for exchanging resources as well as friendly atmosphere of support and mutual understanding within the organization.

To avoid burnout, emergency service workers must separate working and private lives. As soon as they mixed them up, working life takes a grip on and dominates all free time, and the risk burnout increases. Having hobbies and interests is indispensable for relaxation and filling gaps in energy.

Taking measures for preventing burnout at different levels will help emergency service workers to preserve professional qualities and skills and positive personality traits.

People, working with victims of catastrophes and refugees, often deal with people from other countries. Therefore, their training must include learning cultural sensitivity - understanding differences between cultures, ability to deal with people from other cultures, and, most importantly, tolerance towards cultural differences and releasing from stereotypes.

To develop cultural sensitivity, various techniques have been worked out. Many of them are worthy of using in trainings, like for example:

Cultural assimilator (a technique for increasing cultural sensitivity) is a technique of cross-cultural training, aimed at learning the adequate ways of interaction with people from other cultures. It is based on cognitive learning and teaching through compiled reviews. The participants of a training read short passages, describing situations (there may be from 37 to 100 situations) in which individuals from different cultures come across. These situations are recognized by experts as problematic and leading to conflicts, misunderstanding and wrong interpretations due to more or less considerable differences between the cultures. Stereotypes about the other culture, different role-playing expectations, customs and non-verbal behaviour are all taken into account when compiling the review. The situations may be taken from books on ethnography and history, the press or personal experience. After having read the situation, the participants of the training need to choose the correct interpretation of the situation out of the four suggested. Only one interpretation is recognized as correct in the view of people from the culture under investigation. If the chosen interpretation is the correct one, a participant is allowed to analyze another situation. If s/he has failed, the trainer explains the mistake and gives another chance to choose the correct interpretation. The analysis of such situations helps people to become knowledgeable about cultural standards and to understand other cultures as they are, without viewing them in the light of one's own.

Thus, the psychology of safety and counteraction to terrorism has four major components; each of them has its own specificity and demands the approach. Firstly, it is psychology of the terrorism itself, factors, both social and actually psychological, promoting its formation and development. The understanding of genesis of terrorism allows forming adequate actions on its prevention and counteraction. Secondly, it is psychology of counteraction to terrorism. As prevention, it is based on understanding of the reasons and mechanisms of occurrence of terrorism, in aspect of actual counteraction to terrorism on set of special and psychological means of direct interaction with terrorists. Thirdly, it is psychological preparation of the experts dealing with various situations, connected with terrorism. It includes two important moments: psychology of work with victims of terrorism both psychological preparation and support of the specialist. And finally, it is the psychological help both to victims of terrorism and their relatives, as at a stage of releasing from hands of terrorists, and at the subsequent stages of psychological rehabilitation.

Notes

[1] This section has been written together with R.S. Shilko, PhD in Psychology (Candidate °f Science), assistant professor at the Faculty of Psychology of Moscow State University. 6 Зак. 3680

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