Psychological Impact of Hostage Situation Among Captives: An Overview

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Psychological Impact of Hostage Situation Among
Captives An Overview
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Drawings A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words
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Drawings A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words
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Drawings A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words
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Reality Bites!

• Although the resilience of individuals should
  never be underestimated, there is evidence that
  being taken hostage can have enduring effects,
  particularly on children.
• Hostages - like other victims of hijacks, sieges
  and political violence have to cope with
  extreme psychological pressures for which most
  people are completely unprepared.

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Reality Bites!

• Individuals vary in how they cope with such an
  experience, both during and subsequent to it.
• The experience is best described as a
  psychological rollercoaster.
• There are long periods of boredom, punctuated by
  ghastly bursts of violence, fear and threat.

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Persistent Effects of Hostage-Taking Trauma in
Children
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Looking within the captives psyche

• Fear is the ever-present emotion
• "Trapped body, racing mind," is Dr James
  Thompson of University College London summary of
  the hostage's state.
• Some hostages start to feel sympathy for their
  captors, and even support their cause. This is
  known as the Stockholm Syndrome.
• For those who make it out alive, freedom almost
  always brings elation. But the effects of being
  captive don't disappear so easily. Hostages tend
  to review their performance and analysis how they
  performed under pressure.
• Some people never get over the effects.

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Current Research(Published in Journal Watch
Psychiatry February 1, 2000)

• These researchers followed 29 third- and
  first-graders, who with their teacher had been
  held hostage at gunpoint in their classroom for
  two hours by a threatening, deranged intruder,
  and 22 indirectly affected third-graders in
  another class.
• Debriefings at 24 hours and 6 weeks as well as
  psychological counseling were provided to most of
  the directly affected students and their parents.
  Twenty-six directly affected and twenty-one
  indirectly affected children and families agreed
  to participate in the 18-month study

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Significant Findings

• One month after the event, 96 of the directly
  threatened children showed symptoms of acute
  stress reactions, post-traumatic stress disorder,
  or carefully defined subclinical PTSD.
• After four months, 42 of directly exposed and
  40 of indirectly exposed children showed
  symptoms at 18 months, 28 of the directly
  exposed children but only 11 of the comparison
  group showed symptoms.
• Children with preexisting psychological problems
  or who were not debriefed were at greater risk of
  stress-related symptoms.

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Worthy to be Noted

• Although sample sizes were too small for
  statistical validity, the finding that children
  with persistent symptoms of post-traumatic stress
  disorder were more likely to have prior
  psychological problems is consistent with studies
  of PTSD vulnerability in adults

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Stages of Trauma

1. Sudden Occurrence of Traumatic Event
2. Physical Effects
3. Shock or Disbelief
4. Destabilization
5. Psychological Effects (Traumatic symptoms)
6. Coping / Normalizing
7. Recovery

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Degree of Psychological Distress

• Exposure The closer captives are to the location
  of a threatening and/or frightening event, and
  the longer the exposure, the greater the
  likelihood of severe distress.

Relationships Having relationships with the
victims of a disaster (those who were killed,
injured, and/or threatened) is strongly
associated with psychological distress. The
stronger childrens relationships with the
victims, the greater the likelihood of severe
distress.
Initial reactions How captives first respond to
trauma will greatly influence how effectively
they deal with stress in the aftermath
Perceived threat The captives subjective
understanding of the traumatic event can be more
important than the event itself. Simply stated,
severely distressed children will report
perceiving the event as extremely threatening or
frightening.
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PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF TRAUMA
Psychosomatic Illness
PTSD
Anxiety
Depression
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Specific Symptoms of Trauma

• Physical Symptoms
• Changes in eating and sleeping behaviors
• Stomach aches, unease, feelings of stress, head
  aches, and
• difficulty with body temperature control may all
  accompany crisis.

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• Thoughts
• Inability to stop thinking about the crisis
  (cyclical)
• This constant thinking usually heightens feelings
  of distress and makes it more difficult for us to
  find solutions to the situation.
• Feelings of hopelessness and pessimism
• Difficulty concentrating

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• Social isolation During a crisis we often tend
  to feel all alone, and that no one really
  understand us. This causes us to further remove
  ourselves from social situations and support and
  can make the situation even worse. Actually
  talking to someone about the way you feel is the
  first step towards getting over the crisis.

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CONSEQUENCES

• Learning Difficulties
• Memory Disturbances
• Dissociation
• Aggression against Self and Others
• Psychosomatic Reactions

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TRAUMA PARADIGM
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• What we can do to help?
• Let the victim to know that it's normal to feel
  upset when something bad or scary happens
• Encourage the victim to express feelings and
  thoughts, without making judgments
• Protect him/her from further exposure to
  traumatic events, as much as possible
• Return to normal routines as much as possible

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• School can be a major healing environment as the
  child's most important routine. Educate school
  personnel about the child's needs. Reassure the
  child that it was not his or her fault, that
  adults will try to take care of him or her, etc.
• Allow the survivor to feel sad or cry
• Give the him/her a sense of control and choice by
  offering reasonable options about daily
  activities (choosing meals, clothes, etc.)
• If the victim regresses (or starts to do things
  he or she did when younger), people can help by
  being supportive, remembering that it is a common
  response to trauma, and not criticizing the
  behavior
• Adults can be most helpful if they take care of
  themselves and get help for their own distress,
  since children and adolescents may respond to
  adults' feelings and reactions.

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In any hostage taking incidents..the real victims
are the captives.