Therapy With Children Of Hurricane Katrina

Using Relaxation Therapy And Imagery

Lendell W. Braud, Ph.D., Leon H. Belcher, Ph.D., Jessica Wright, B.A, San Juanita Trevino, B.S., Blair Powell, M.A., Verlynn E. Williams, Ed.D., and Mimi Lupin, M.A. L.S.S.P.

In August of 2005 Hurricane Katrina devastated the homes, property and lives of families living along the coast of Louisiana , Mississippi , and Alabama . Many families moved to Houston , Texas and the children of these families entered school. During the fall of 2005 over 200 children from New Orleans attended classes at the school. Most of these children only stayed 1-3 months before they moved back to Louisiana or other parts of the United States . Many of the children that remained began to tell us the horrible events that they had experienced. The senior author developed a Katrina Interview that assessed a number of stressors and traumatic events. Questions included factors such as being in the Superdome, Astrodome or shelter, being harmed in a shelter, being in an attic or on a roof, death of a family member, loss of a pet, seeing dead bodies, and other negative events. These questions were asked to determine the number of stressful events and the degree of trauma experienced by each child. The children rated 8 items on a stress ruler to indicate the degree of stress related to each event. Children indicated that stress included several emotions including anxiety, sadness, and/or anger. The stress ruler contains 4 faces indicating greater degrees of emotion/stress. The stress ruler (Appendix A) also allowed younger children a way to express themselves in a simple manner. The questions and stress ruler also allowed the child to indicate the amount of stress he/she had before Katrina and how much stress was associated with moving to a new city , a new school and leaving friends and family apart from the storm. The Katrina Interview served two purposes. First, the interview allowed the authors to assess the number of stressors and correlate the amount of stress with anxiety, depression and behavior problems. Second, the interview began a dialog with the child about events and issues related to these events. This dialog continued in group discussions that followed the relaxation sessions.

Children were assessed using the Katrina Interview, Revised Children’s Manifest Anxiety Scale, Digit Span (WISC-IV), Modified Emotionality Scale. A Behavioral Rating was also given to the parents of the children attending relaxation sessions. The authors noted early in the testing process that children that left New Orleans before the storm had much less stress and emotional problems. Therefore, the evaluation of all students was used in the correlation portion of this project. The children that had emotional problems and remained at the school entered relaxation therapy. The authors read these children a short book named Feeling Katrina. This is a book by two psychologists (Lynette S. Causey, Ph.D. and Sandra Rouce, Ph.D.) designed to help children understand that negative emotions can remain long after the storm had passed. The book acknowledges that it is hard to leave your friends and your school. The children in the story miss the smell of gumbo, the sound of jazz and other things associated with their culture and their neighborhood. As the authors read this story to the children they told us the things they missed about New Orleans .

The children included in this project ranged in age from 7-12 years. All children were African American. The children had expressed a sincere desire to participate in the relaxation program. Several of these youngsters had severe behavioral problems and were pleased to know that relaxation has been used to treat behavior problems.

Relaxation sessions began after the Christmas Holiday (2005). The children attended 12-15 relaxation sessions utilizing The Old Me New Me Program (www.oldmenewme.com). The Old Me New Me program is by Mimi Lupin (M.A., LPC, LSSP). This program includes a progressive relaxation tape, a breathing tape and 11 stories. The story tapes are guided imagery trips (Beach, Star. Woods, Secret Place , Magic Mountain and other stories) designed to address a variety of emotional and behavioral problems such as anxiety, anger, frustration, oppositional behavior, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. Positive Self-Talk statements are embedded in these stories to address negative behaviors and enhance internal locus of control. Immediately following the 15 minute relaxation or story tape a discussion ensued. The discussion section allowed the child to talk about his/her feelings and help the children implement the relaxation skills in their daily lives. Previous research has indicated that it is essential to help children learn how to use these techniques in their life and with their specific problems. This helps generalize the techniques to new settings.

Over 20 years research with this program has demonstrated significant improvement in concentration ability, anxiety, hyperactivity, aggressive ability, frustration, and other behaviors. The original population of 22 children were tested. Significant differences between the anxiety levels of children that had experienced more stressful events as compared with those experiencing fewer stressors. ( p< .03). The total population demonstrated a deficit in auditory memory as measured by the Digit Span subtest ( M=8.00). Therefore, therapy including visual imagery is helpful. Children remaining at the school were placed in therapy. These children made significant progress on auditory memory (Digit Span, p< .05). Significant decreases were found in anxiety, physiological anxiety, and worry/oversensitivity ( p< .03) as well as social concerns/concentration ( p< .02). Additional improvements were found in a reduction of concentration problems and thought disorder symptoms ( p< .02) and depression ( p< .03).

Parent ratings demonstrated significant decreases in physical aggression, verbal aggression, impulsivity, and concentration problems ( p< .03) as well as frustration and hyperactivitynn( p< .02). Post therapy interviews with the children indicated that this therapy gave them self power and reduced feelings of helplessness and hopelessness. This provides resilience. nnnn--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This article appeared in "The Journal of Imagery International",
June 2007. nnn