“Ask Judith” Archives

Hurricane Katrina Coaching

by Judith Cohen

Dear Judith:
I would like to offer help to our local survivors of Hurricane Katrina. Are there any special things that I should think about when coaching them?
F.D. 

Dear F.D.:
Coaching people who have survived the ravages of Hurricane Katrina requires you to be curious, goal oriented, and absolutely able to dance in the moment. While your question pertains to Hurricane Katrina survivors in particular, these suggestions are applicable to survivors of other forms of individual and collective disasters such as house fires, earthquakes, plane crashes and all other forms of catastrophic loss of life and property.

In my own experience and in other survivors’ experiences, it seems to be true that from the moment that people believe themselves to be participants in a catastrophic event, their lives are forever impacted by that experience. Life can never fully return to its pre-catastrophic state because the catastrophe indelibly changes each one of us. This is neither good nor bad. It just is. Whether someone makes positive meaning of their experience or they become unable to function under the burden of this change, everyone will be reacting to some form of loss. Coaching can be helpful in coming to terms with and adapting to the new realities facing the survivors of Hurricane Katrina.

While people may feel themselves profoundly changed by their new circumstances, they still need to be kept in touch with their values, hopes and dreams. It is still important for them to make powerful choices and to stay present to their feelings and processes in the moment. Your role as a coach is to be able to dance between answering immediate survival needs and helping your clients design and possibly redefine their lives in light of the new constraints and possibilities.

Most people hire coaches to work on one or more specific goals. Many survivors of Hurricane Katrina are being forced to rebuild their lives from the ground up and most likely will have to deal with numerous issues in every aspect of their lives. While it’s very important to keep focused on the Big Picture, the essentials of day-to-day survival and rebuilding, possibly relocating and redirecting their lives will require prioritizing, strategizing and taking action after action to re-create lives of comfort and meaning.

Prioritizing:
Survival trumps all other needs. To this end, people need to have safe and continuous access to food, clothing and shelter. Make sure that your clients are physically and emotionally safe. Should your clients either be injured or too overwhelmed to take appropriate care of themselves help them locate immediate assistance to remedy these specific situations.

An equally important priority is dealing with the psychological and spiritual needs engendered by Hurricane Katrina. Many people have lost loved family members, pets and all of their possessions. Whether or not emotions are blatantly exhibited, it is likely that people might be feeling a wide range of contradictory feelings: relief at escaping, shock, guilt, rage, depression, helplessness, optimism, fear, grief, etc. Similarly, acts of God and other ravaging catastrophes also call forth desires for meaning and healing. It is important to provide a space to talk about both the emotional and the spiritual impacts of the hurricane.

As a coach, it will be particularly helpful for you to approach your clients as the naturally creative, resourceful and whole people that they are. This needs not only to be an honest stance on your part but a priority to instill in your clients. While this is a time of much suffering, grief and despair, it can also be a time of remarkable resilience, opening and miraculous behavior. This is an opportunity to call people forth and have them see their survivorship, commitment and will to rebuild their lives as inspirational. Remind them of their hopes, dreams and values and distinguish between their circumstances and who they are being.

Finally, as a coach you should remain curious about what your clients experience as their most important current priorities. Is it more important to search for missing family members and pets or do they need to find permanent housing first? How do they want to deal with those family members who have died as a result of the hurricane? Do they want work out details in regard to insurance settlements? Do they want to relocate? Do they need job retraining? There are numerous questions to ask that will help point people in the direction of acting in their best interests and determining what is most important to them now.

Strategies:
An extremely helpful strategy that will benefit your clients is information gathering. Many important decisions will need to be made in the coming weeks and months. An informed decision will give people a sense of control and true choice. Information may be obtained on the Internet, through talking with other people who have survived earlier hurricanes, and through reviewing skills that were productive in earlier periods of personal stress and loss. It is also helpful to know the questions that need to be asked to get the information necessary to make helpful decisions. Blogs, listservs, search engines and newsgroups can also be an excellent source of information that may not be available other places.

You can be extremely helpful to your clients by being able to offer referrals for concrete services and psycho-spiritual supports. Make yourself familiar with the appropriate social service agencies and professionals in both psychological and spiritual communities. Your clients may want to avail themselves of advocates and ombudsmen to help facilitate successful outcomes in regard to insurance, federal and state benefits and other bureaucratic processes. Be able to suggest a variety of resources and supports to assist your clients in getting the services that they need.

Help your clients understand Hurricane Katrina as both a personal event and in its larger social context. It is important to deal with this both personally and at the community level. Part of effectively dealing with this crisis is to be able respond appropriately within the limits of our individual internal and external resources and as members of a responsible community. In catastrophic events blame is often misconstrued as power. Whether one blames oneself or another, it is important to look underneath the blame to see what is being wanted personally and as a community.

Action:
In the face of so many large needs and possibly conflicting desires, it can appear impossible to take any action. “Chunking actions down” into manageable steps is particularly helpful at this point. As in achieving any other goal, people need to take small steps toward what they both desire and need.

Keep your clients on task. It is especially important for you to help them hold all that is going on right now and keep them on track. It is likely that stress will cause them to be forgetful and you can do them a great service by maintaining an awareness of deadlines, steps to be taken and focus on sequences of actions that need to happen in order to receive the help that they need.

Finally, acknowledge who your clients are being as they take these actions. Many of them have to surmount large obstacles and barriers to get what they need. Their dedication and their willingness to do whatever it takes deserve to be commended.

Some last tips:

• There is no timetable for recovery. Recovery from a catastrophe is an ongoing series of events. Your client may seem fine in several months and then suffer anniversary reactions every September or feel anxious at hearing of another Hurricane in their area. Each person’s response to the catastrophe will be different. There are no rules in this regard.

• While physical objects may be replaced, your clients’ original possessions were invested with feelings, memories and sentiment. Do not assume that because they have replaced their material possessions or gotten into new relationships that the old objects and relationships are forgotten or have no influence in their current lives.

• Talking about the catastrophe in great detail doesn’t always help. Not talking about it also doesn’t always help. Take your lead from your client.

• For some people, taking action immediately will be helpful. For others, creating meaning out of the event will create a sense of stability that will allow them to move forward in their lives. Be careful not to wait for meaning to arrive before any action is taken.

• Be sure that you get the support that you need while helping your clients. Trauma work can be both exhilarating and exhausting for those who are working with survivors. Make sure that you are getting your needs met as you work with others.

• Regardless of whether your clients live in New Orleans and the other areas affected by Hurricane Katrina or they live thousands of miles away, be prepared to deal with her aftermath. New Orleans has held a special place in many people’s hearts. New Orleans residents have relatives and connections all over the world. Regardless of race or class, the media’s graphic coverage of the poor and disenfranchised of our country has had a reverberating impact on people. To quote John Donne, “No man is an island…” In the geography of the heart, Hurricane Katrina tore through all of our neighborhoods.