Natural disasters have traumatized the United States and its geographic neighbors over the last few months.
Hurricanes swept across Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico, leaving destruction and death in their wakes. Portions of the Northwest U.S. have endured wildfires, and an earthquake devastated Mexico.
Whenever such distressing events happen, much of the media focus zeroes in on recovery efforts, such as restoring power, providing food and water, and rebuilding damaged property.
But for many natural-disaster victims there are also mental health issues that need to be addressed. The anxiety and stress that overcome people whose lives are turned upside down by these disasters can evolve into a form of post-traumatic-stress disorder that’s more often associated with soldiers returning from battle.
“So often, we think of the physical injuries that natural disasters cause, while the mental issues aren’t always as visible,” says Dr. Steven Levine (www.ktcpartnership.com), a psychiatrist and founder of the Ketamine Treatment Centers, which has 10 locations in eight states.
“People who go through these tragedies may have lost their homes. They are worried about surviving. They can find themselves re-living the disaster in their minds. There are so many factors that add to the anxiety and take a toll on their psychological well being.”
The American Psychological Association suggests a number of ways to cope in the wake of a natural disaster. Among them:
- Give yourself time to adjust. Anticipate that this will be a difficult time in your life. Allow yourself to mourn the losses you have experienced and try to be patient with changes in your emotional state. “You can’t expect everything to return to normal overnight,” Levine says. “But most people probably will return to some semblance of a normal life within a few weeks or months.”
- Establish or reestablish routines. This can include eating meals at regular times, sleeping and waking on a regular cycle, or following an exercise program. The association suggests building in some positive routines to have something to look forward to during these distressing times, like pursuing a hobby, walking through an attractive park or neighborhood, or reading a good book.
- Seek professional help if necessary. For some people, the trauma is too great to handle on their own. They turn to professionals for help, which can range from counseling to medication for depression. At the Ketamine Treatment Centers, Levine provides patients a series of intravenous ketamine infusions, which can successfully treat severe anxiety, PTSD and major depression, among other mental-health symptoms. “One of the advantages with ketamine is it doesn’t come with the side effects that other anti-depression medications often have,” Levine says. “It also doesn’t take weeks or months for a patient to start showing improvement.” In fact, he says, most patients will know within hours after their first infusion whether they are responding.
“Most people in their lives are going to experience at least one traumatic event, but fortunately the vast majority won’t develop PTSD,” Levine says. “For those who do, there’s no one magic treatment that’s going to work above all others. Usually, I recommend a combination of ketamine treatment and psychotherapy.
“The important thing to understand is that, even after a devastating natural disaster, people can get things back in order and regain control of their lives.”
About Dr. Steven Levine
Dr. Steven Levine founded Ketamine Treatment Centers (www.ktcpartnership.com) in 2011. Though he is a psychiatrist who places great emphasis on the importance of psychotherapy, medication is often a necessary component of treatment, and he was dissatisfied with the relatively ineffective available options with burdensome side effects. Levine pioneered a protocol for the clinical use of Ketamine infusions, has directly supervised many thousands of infusions and has helped establish similar programs across the country and around the world.
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