Therapy after Terror: 9/11, Psychotherapists, and Mental Health

Karen M. Seeley

Apr 2008 · Cambridge University Press

About this ebook

Therapy After Terror examines the 2001 World Trade Center attack from the perspectives of New York City mental health professionals who treated the psychologically wounded following the attack. Therapists discuss the attack's effects on their patients, its personal and professional consequences for them, and the ways it challenged fundamental aspects of clinical theory and practice. The book describes crisis mental health services that were established after the attack, as well as longer-term treatments. It also examines notions of trauma, diagnostic procedures, and the politics of psychological treatment. Seeley uses her unique interdisciplinary background as she provides a detailed study of the post-9/11 mental health crisis, including depictions of the restricted 'hot spots' such as the Lexington Avenue Armory, Family Assistance Centers, and Respite Centers at Ground Zero, where mental health workers delivered aid.

About the author

Karen M. Seeley's interests lie at the intersection of psychology and anthropology. She is a Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at Columbia University, where she teaches courses on culture and mental health, trauma, disaster, and psychological anthropology, and she teaches cultural psychology in the Psychology Department at Barnard College. She is also a psychotherapist with a private practice in New York City. She has a Master's in education from Harvard University, a Master's in social work from New York University, and a Ph.D. in education from the University of Pennsylvania, specializing in cultural psychology. Dr Seeley's interdisciplinary training informs her approach to mental health. She has brought anthropological perspectives on culture, society, and power to bear on clinical practice, and has critically investigated western theories of mental health, the culture of psychological clinics, and the dynamics of intercultural psychological treatments. She also has developed new modes of ethnographic inquiry that foreground cultural material in intercultural clinical encounters. Dr Seeley writes, lectures, and consults on culture and mental health. She is the author of Cultural Psychotherapy: Working with Culture in the Clinical Encounter. In addition, she has published articles in a number of journals, including Social Work, the Psychoanalytic Review, and Psychotherapy and Politics International.