Efforts to provide professional trauma counseling assume that trauma is the main psychosoc
However it is not just the kind of support—social or psychological—that makes a difference. Across humanitarian sectors, the way in which relief is provided has a strong impact on psychosocial well-being. A common error is to view earthquake survivors as passive victims who need to be taken care of or healed by outsiders. (3) In the present emergency, the most effective means of providing psychosocial support is through a process of community mobilization and empowerment wherein communities make their own decisions and develop their own systems of protection, care, and support for survivors. When communities make choices about how to move forward, they reestablish a sense of control that is a powerful antidote to feelings of being overwhelmed. (4) As they engage in collective planning and action, they gain a sense of hope for the future and move out of the victim's role they too often are cast into.
(5) Psychosocial support is not mainly something done to or for people by psychologists or psychiatrists but a process of local people activating their own social support for their collective well-being and positive future. Taking heed of this key point, the emphasis in earthquake response should be on social interventions that empower local people. At best, trauma counseling is a very small part of the much wider array of support that will help victims get on with their lives.
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