Earthquake trauma consists of 5 stages as in the mourning process. These stages are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. While the process in the stages may differ from person to person, experts state that if this process lasts more than 2 months, it can be mentioned about a prolonged grief process and in this case, psychological support should be sought.
Üsküdar University NPISTANBUL Brain Hospital Specialist Clinical Psychologist Penbesel Özdemir stated that there are five stages in earthquake trauma, as in the mourning process, and evaluated the characteristics of these periods.
Stages of Post-Traumatic Grief Process
Stating that the mourning process is a process defined by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and consists of some stages, Specialist Clinical Psychologist Penbesel Özdemir listed these stages as denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
Denial Stage: People go through a shock after facing an unexpected situation. This is why this stage is also called the 'shock' stage. The shock and denial phase starts with some sentences such as "This will not happen to me", "He can't really be dead". This process is based on denial of the situation.
Anger Stage: In the next stage, the person enters the anger stage. This process comes after the denial stage and after the loss, a stage of disappointment and anger begins. Because some feelings of guilt and regret may also arise after the loss. Emotions such as anger and distress begin to increase with the feeling of not being able to do what they wanted to do together, having thought that they had lost the person early, and feeling frustrated that their wishes and expectations can no longer be realized. During this period, the person of course questions why this happened to me, or starts looking for the guilty party, starts questioning. Anger accompanies this process.
Bargaining Phase: The other process is the bargaining phase, and in this process, a bargaining process is now going on with the creator. It is a process about the return of the deceased person, about their being alive. It is also an attitude we show towards our relatives who we feel are closer to death. It's a period of bargaining, like "Let's not let him die, but let it be like this". We can show such attitudes towards our relatives who survived but are now close to death. For example, it is a process for people who were under the rubble in the earthquake or who are still in a critical period after the earthquake.
Depression Stage: In the depression stage, the person begins to experience the helplessness of that loss. The depression stage is the period when we take the reality of loss into our lives. During this period, the person begins to experience the emotions characteristic of depression. These emotions such as reluctance, lack of energy, pessimism, guilt and loss of interest are experienced during the depression stage.
Acceptance Stage: The next stage is the acceptance stage, where we accept that death is a part and reality of our lives. Here we see that no matter how much we negotiate, there is no situation that we can bring back, so it comes to a period when we see that acceptance is the healthiest way. This is the stage where we remember our good memories of the person we lost, feel gratitude and realize that life can go on without them.
Expert Clinical Psychologist Penbesel Özdemir stated that these stages are not experienced in the same way by everyone and said, "None of us go through these stages in this order, nor do we go through and complete each stage in order. While it takes longer for one of us to stay in the anger stage, it may be easier for one of us to transition to the acceptance stage. We are talking about the theoretical part of the work, but of course, when we encounter it in practice, each of us may experience this process differently."
When to Get Support?
Stating that in this process, the concepts called prolonged mourning and incomplete mourning also come to the agenda, Specialist Clinical Psychologist Penbesel Özdemir said, "As long as the person cannot reach their losses and cannot be sure whether they are alive or not, it becomes very difficult to live this process in a healthy way.
When the grief is prolonged, for example, if these reactions continue for more than 2 months, that is, if the intense longing for the deceased person, the state of being in those memories and thoughts all the time, if the person no longer has a significant distrust of death, if he avoids remembering his losses, if he is in intense emotional pain, if he has difficulty in adapting to his life again, and if the feelings of meaninglessness and emptiness about life increase, we can talk about a prolonged mourning process. For a situation that needs to be handled clinically, psychological support is absolutely necessary."