Does terrorism have a unique and significant emotional and behavioral impact among adults and children? In what way does the impact of terrorism exceed the individual level and affect communities and specific professional groups, and test different leadership styles? How were professional communities of mental health clinicians, policy-makers and researchers mobilized to respond to the emerging needs post disaster? What are the lessons learned from the work conducted after 9/11, and the implications for future disaster mental health work and preparedness efforts? Yuval Neria and his team are uniquely placed to answer these questions having been involved in modifying ongoing trials and setting up new ones in New York to address these issues straight after the attacks. No psychiatrist, mental health professional or policy-maker should be without this book.

Table of Contents:
Foreword; Part I. Introduction: 1. Mental health in the aftermath of terrorist attacks: making sense of mass casualty trauma; Part II. The Psychological Aftermath of 9/11: 2. Preface; 3. Posttraumatic stress symptoms in the general population after disaster: implications for public health; 4. Coping with a national trauma: A nationwide longitudinal study of responses to the terrorist attacks of September 11th; 5. An epidemiological response to disasters: the New York City Board of Education's Post 9/11 Needs Assessment; 6. Historical perspective and future directions in research on psychiatric consequences of terrorism and other disasters; 7. Capturing the impact of large-scale events through epidemiological research: challenges and obstacles; 8. Mental health research in the aftermath of disasters: using the right methods to ask the right questions; Part III. Reducing the Burden: Community Response and Community Recovery: 9. Community and ecological approaches to understanding and alleviating postdisaster distress (Introduction to section); 10. What is collective recovery?; 11. Rebuilding communities post disaster in New York; 12. Journalism and the public during catastrophes; 13. Effective leadership in extreme crisis; 14. Guiding community intervention following terrorist attack; Part IV. Outreach and Intervention in the Wake of Terrorist Attacks: 15. Science for the community after 9/11; Part IV.i. New York Area: 16. The psychological aftermath of 9/11 attacks in primary care; 17. Project Liberty: responding to mental health needs after the World Trade Center terrorist attacks; 18. The Mental Health Association of New York City; 19. The New York Consortium for Effective Trauma Treatment; 20. First responders: FDNY and Con Edison; 21. The World Trade Center Worker/Volunteer Mental Health Screening Program; 22. Child and adolescent trauma treatments and services after September 11: implementing evidence-based practices into complex child-serving systems; 23. Relationally and developmentally focused interventions with young children and their caregivers in the wake of terrorism and other violent experiences; Part IV.ii. Washington DC: 24. The mental health response to the 9/11 attacks on the Pentagon; 25. Learning lessons from the early intervention response at the Pentagon (commentary); Part IV.iii. Prolonged-Exposure Treatment as a Core Resource for Clinicians in the Community: Dissemination of Trauma Knowledge Post Disaster: 26. Psychological treatments for PTSD: an Overview; 27. Dissemination of prolonged exposure therapy for PTSD: successes and challenges; 28. Training therapists to practice evidence-based psychotherapy after 9/11; Part V. Disasters and Mental Health: Perspectives on Response and Preparedness: 29. The Epidemiology of 9-11: technological advances and conceptual conundrums; 30. Searching for points of convergence: a commentary on prior research on disasters and some community programs initiated in response to September 11, 2001; 31. What mental health professionals should and shouldn't do; 32. Coping with the threat of terrorism; 33. Preparedness and future directions; 34. Lessons learned from 9/11: the boundaries of a mental health approach to mass casualty events; 35. Post-disaster research: lessons learned from 9/11 and future directions.