Summary
This chapter employs C. Wright Mills’ (1959) concept of the sociological imagination to understand the role secondary trauma has in societal disruption that occurs when communities experience inadequate responses to disasters, crises, and hazardous events. The examples in this chapter will further illustrate how Clinical Social Research can be used to address secondary traumas during the post-disaster/post-crisis recovery phase following a disaster. This chapter extends the theoretical concept of Gill’s (Sociological Spectrum, 27(6): 613–632, 2007) work to advance a response to disasters in an effort to mitigate long-term secondary trauma resulting from institutional failures in response to the initial disaster or crisis events.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Barker, K. (2011). ��Spillionaires’ are the new rich after BP oil spill payouts. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/spillionaires-are-the-new-rich-after-bp-oil-spill-payouts/2011/04/11/AFjaqsWD_story.html.
Baum, A., & Fleming, I. (1993). Implications of psychological research on stress and technological accidents. American Psychologist, 48(6), 665–672.
Britton, N. R., & John, O. (1991). The meanings of hazard. In N. R. Britton & O. J. Armidale (Eds.), Natural and technological hazards: Implications for the insurance industry (pp. 1–11). Centre for Disaster Management, University of New England.
Connon, I., Prior, J., & Fam, D. (2018). Danger from the outside in: Resident perceptions of environmental contamination in home environments. Human Ecology Review, 24(2), 129–152. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26785909
Couch, S. R. (1996). Environmental contamination, community transformation and the Centralia mine fire: Toward a stage model for industrial contamination. In J. K. Mitchell (Ed.), Community response to industrial disasters (pp. 60–85). United Nations University Press.
Couch, S. R. (1999). Recovery from chronic technological disasters: Is it possible? Paper presented at the meeting of the Eastern Sociological Society.
Cuthbertson, B. H., & Nigg, J. M. (1987). Technological disaster and the nontherapeutic community: A question of true victimization. Environment and Behavior, 19, 462–483.
Cuthbertson, B. H., & Nigg, J. M. (1991). Victimization and self-blame following a technological disaster. In S. R. Couch & J. S. Kroll-Smith (Eds.), Communities at risk: Collective responses to technological hazards (pp. 33–52). Peter Lang.
Dickinson, T., & Burton, I. (2015). The disaster epidemic: Research, diagnosis, and prescriptions. In P. U. Fra (Ed.), Risk governance (pp. 185–200). Springer.
Drabek, T. E. (1986). Human system responses to disaster: An inventory of sociological findings. Springer.
Drabek, T. E., & Key, W. H. (1984). Conquering disaster: Family recovery and long-term consequences. Irvington Publishers.
Edelstein, M. (2004). Contaminated communities: Coping with residential toxic exposure (2nd ed.). Routledge.
Erikson, K. T. (1976). Everything in its path: Destruction of community in the buffalo creek flood. Simon and Schuster.
Fink, S. (2013). Five days at Memorial: Life and death in a storm-ravaged hospital (1st ed.). Crown Publishers.
Freudenburg, W. R. (1993). Risk and recreancy: Weber, the division of labor, and the rationality of risk perceptions. Social Forces, 71(4), 909–932.
Freudenburg, W. R. (1997). Contamination, corrosion and the social order: An overview. Current Sociology, 45(3), 19–39.
Freudenburg, W. R. (2000). The ‘risk society’ reconsidered: Recreancy, the division of labor, and risks to the social fabric. In M. J. Cohen (Ed.), Risk in the modern age: Social theory, science, and environmental decision-making (pp. 107–122). St. Martin’s Press.
Freudenburg, W. R., & Jones, T. (1991). Attitudes and stress in the presence of technological risk: A test of the Supreme Court hypothesis. Social Forces, 69(4), 1143–1168.
Fukuyama, F. (2000). Social capital and civil society. IMF working paper no. 00/74, available at SSRN.: https://ssrn.com/abstract=879582
Galea, S., Ahern, J., Resnick, H., Kilpatrick, D., Bucuvalas, M., Gold, J., & Vlahov, D. (2002). Psychological sequelae of the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York City. The New England Journal of Medicine, 346(13), 982–987. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMsa013404
Galea, S., Brewin, C. R., Gruber, M., Jones, R. T., King, D. W., King, L. A., McNally, R. J., Ursano, R. J., Petukhova, M., & Kessler, R. C. (2007). Exposure to hurricane-related stressors and mental illness after Hurricane Katrina. Archives of General Psychiatry, 64, 1427–1434. [PubMed: 18056551].
Gerrity, E. T., & Flynn, B. W. (1997). Mental health consequences of disaster. In E. K. Noji (Ed.), The public health consequences of disasters (pp. 101–121). Oxford University Press.
Gill, D. A. (1994). Environmental disaster and fishery co-management in a natural resource community: Impacts of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. In C. L. Dyer & J. R. McGoodwin (Eds.), Folk management in the world’s fisheries: Implications for fisheries managers (pp. 207–235). University of Colorado Press.
Gill, D. A. (2007). Secondary trauma or secondary disaster? Insights from hurricane Katrina. Sociological Spectrum, 27(6), 613–632. https://doi.org/10.1080/02732170701574941
Gill, D. A., & Picou, S. J. (1998). Technological disaster and chronic community stress. Society and Natural Resources, 11, 795–815.
Gleser, G. C., Green, B. L., & Winget, C. (1981). Of Disaster: A Study of Buffalo Creek. Academic Press.
Government Technology. (2018). Long-term recovery never ends for some after natural disasters. https://www.govtech.com/em/disaster/long-term-recovery-never-ends-for-some-after-natural-disasters.html
Grace, M. C., Green, B. L., Lindy, J., & Leonard, A. (1993). The Buffalo Creek Disaster: A 14 year follow-up. In J. P. Wilson & B. Raphael (Eds.), International handbook of traumatic stress syndromes (pp. 441–450). Plenum Press.
Granovetter, M. (1973). The stength of weak ties. American Journal of Sociology, 78, 1350–1380.
Grieger, T. A. (2006). Psychiatric and societal impacts of terrorism. Psychiatric Times, 23, 7.
Kessler, R. C., McLaughlin, K. A., Koenen, K. C., Petukhova, M., Hill, E. D., & WHO World Mental Health Survey Consortium. (2012). The importance of secondary trauma exposure for post-disaster mental disorder. Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences, 21(1), 35–45. https://doi.org/10.1017/s2045796011000758
Krey, N. C. (2006). Accident Trends and Factors for 2005. AOPA Air Safety Foundation.
Kroll-Smith, J. S. (1995). 1994 MSSA plenary address: Toxic contamination and the loss of civility. Sociological Spectrum, 15(4), 377–396.
Kroll-Smith, J. S., & Couch, S. R. (1991). Technological hazard, adaptation and social change. In R. Couch & J. S. Kroll-Smith (Eds.), Communities at risk: Collective responses to technological hazards (pp. 293–320). Peter Lang.
Kroll-Smith, J. S., & Couch, S. R. (1993a). Symbols, ecology, and contamination: Case studies in the ecological-symbolic approach to disaster. Research in Social Problems and Public Policy, 5, 47–73.
Kroll-Smith, J. S., & Couch, S. R. (1993b). Technological Hazards: Social responses as traumatic stressors. In J. P. Wilson & B. Raphael (Eds.), International handbook of traumatic stress syndromes (pp. 79–91). Plenum Press.
Miller, D. S. (2006). Visualizing the corrosive community: Looting in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Space and Culture: International Journal of Social Spaces, 9(1), 71–73.
Miller, D. S. (2008). Disaster tourism and disaster landscape attractions after Hurricane Katrina: An auto-ethnographic journey. International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research, 2(2), 115–131.
Miller, D. S. (2016). Public trust in the aftermath of natural and na-technological disasters. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 36(5/6), 410–431. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSSP-02-2015-0030
Mills, C. W. (1959/2000). The sociological imagination (Fortieth anniversary edition). Oxford University Press.
Morsut, C., Kuran, C., Kruke, B. I., Nævestad, T., Orru, K., & Hansson, S. (2022). A critical appraisal of individual social capital in crisis response. Risk, Hazards & Crisis in Public Policy. https://doi.org/10.1002/rhc3.12236
Oliver-Smith, A., Alcántara-Ayala, I., Burton, I., & Lavell, A. M. (2017). The social construction of disaster risk: Seeking root causes. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 22, 469–474.
Peek, L. (2018). Looking back and moving forward: 2018 International Sociological Association Research Committee on Disasters (RC39) Presidential Address. International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters, 36(2), 87–96.
Picou, J. S. (2000). The “talking circle” as sociological practice: Cultural transformation of chronic disaster impacts. Sociological Practice, 2(2), 77–97.
Picou, J. S., Marshall, B. K., & Gill, D. A. (2004). Disaster, litigation, and the corrosive community. Social Forces, 82(4), 1448–1482.
Pielke, R. A., Jr. (2006). Disasters, death and destruction: Making sense of recent calamities. Oceanography, 19, 138–147.
Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American Community. Touchstone.
Ritchie, L. A. (2004). Voices of cordova: Social capital in the wake of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work, Mississippi State University.
Ritchie, L. A. (2012). Individual stress, collective trauma, and social capital in the wake of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Sociological Inquiry, 82, 187–211.
Ritchie, L. A., & Gill, D. A. (2007). Social capital theory as an integrating framework for technological disaster research. Sociological Spectrum, 27, 1–26.
Ritchie, L. A., Gill, D. A., & Farnham, C. N. (2013). Recreancy revisited: Beliefs about institutional failure following the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Society and Natural Resources, 26, 655–671.
Rivera, J. D., & Miller, D. S. (2007). Continually neglected: Situating natural disasters in the African American Experience. Journal of Black Studies, 37(4), 502–522.
Schlenger, W. E., Caddell, J. M., Ebert, L., Jordan, B. K., Rourke, K. M., Wilson, D., Thalji, L., Dennis, J. M., Fairbank, J. A., & Kulka, R. A. (2002). Psychological reactions to terrorist attacks: findings from the National Study of Americans’ Reactions to September 11. JAMA, 288(5), 581–588. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.288.5.581
Schuller, T., Baron, S., & Field, J. (2000). Social capital: A review and critique. In Baron et al. (Eds.), Social capital: Critical perspectives (pp. 1–38). Oxford University Press.
Schuster, M. A., Stein, B. D., Jaycox, L., Collins, R. L., Marshall, G. N., Elliott, M. N., Zhou, A. J., Kanouse, D. E., Morrison, J. L., & Berry, S. H. (2001). A national survey of stress reactions after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The New England Journal of Medicine, 345(20), 1507–1512. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJM200111153452024
Shalev, A. Y., Ankri, Y., Israeli-Shalev, Y., Peleg, T., Adessky, R., & Freedman, S. (2011). Prevention of posttraumatic stress disorder by early treatment: Results from the Jerusalem trauma outreach and prevention study. Archives of General Psychiatry. https://doi.org/10.1001/archgenpsychiatry.2011.127
Shear, K., Frank, E., Houck, P. R., & Reynolds, C. F., III. (2005). Treatment of complicated grief: A randomized controlled trial. Journal of the American Medical Association, 293, 2601–2608. [PubMed: 15928281].
Shear, K. M., McLaughlin, K. A., Ghesquiere, A., Gruber, M. J., Sampson, N. A., & Kessler, R. C. (2011). Complicated grief associated with Hurricane Katrina. Depression and Anxiety, 28, 648–657. [PubMed: 21796740].
Silver, R. C., Holman, E. A., McIntosh, D. N., Poulin, M., & Gil-Rivas, V. (2002). Nationwide longitudinal study of psychological responses to September 11. JAMA, 288(10), 1235–1244. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.288.10.1235
Smith, E. M., & North, C. S. (1993). Posttraumatic stress disorder in natural disasters and technological accidents. In J. P. Wilson & B. Raphael (Eds.), International handbook of traumatic stress syndromes (pp. 405–419). Plenum Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2024 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Chtouris, S., Miller, D.S. (2024). Clinical Social Research and Disaster Recovery: Informing Inquiry, Analysis, and Intervention Following Disasters and Crises. In: Diagnosis in Social Fields and Networks. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-52415-8_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-52415-8_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-52414-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-52415-8
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)