Mental first aid in disasters, accidents and crises

Authors: Jan Haslerud, Gerd-Ragna Bloch Thorsen, Egil Waldenstrøm

Mankind has always been subject to accidents and disasters. At any one time wars are being fought somewhere on the planet. Mankind has, in attempts to cope with such events, developed a variety of reactions.In the last decade an attempt has been made to counteract this with more systematic work in research and development, and world wide knowledge and experience about crices has been collected.

We have divided this booklet into two main sections. The first section deals, in a more general way, with reactions to stress and crises, and also with how the needs of people in general can be adressed. The second section deals with grief and reactions to grief. In this section we also take a special look at children`s reaction to grief.We have tried to provide some general guidelines for both individuals and professionals who provide assistance to meet the needs of people in crisis.