Also l7y John Leach RUNNING APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY EXPERIMENTS

SURVIVAL PSYCHOLOGY

Also l7y John Leach RUNNING APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY EXPERIMENTS

Survival Psychology John Leach Lecturer in Psychology University 01 Lancaster Consultant Editor: Jo Campling M MACMILLAN

John Leach 1994 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reprodllced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or llnder the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenharn Court Road, London WIP 9HE. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication rnay be liable to criminal prosecution ami civil claims for darnages. First published 1994 by MACMILLAN PRESS LTD HOllndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world ISBN 978-0-333-51855-7 DOI 10.1057/9780230372719 ISBN 978-0-230-37271-9 (ebook) A cataloglle record for this book is available frorn the British Library.

To all those who... shall go Always a little further: it may be Beyond that last blue mountain barr'd with snow Across that angry or that glimmering sea. James Elroy Flecker (1884-1915) The Golden Journey to Samarkand

Contents J>reface Acknowledgements 1 Anatomy of a Disaster 1 2 Psychological Responses to a Disaster 10 3 Individual Reactions 30 4 Associated Factors in Survival 58 5 Coping Behaviour and Psychological First Aid 123 6 Long-Term Survival 148 7 Recovery and Post-Trauma 177 Appendix: J>sychological Aide-Memoire 196 References 197 Index 208 IX xii VII

Preface Survival is a very personal thing - it is a very lonely thing. Even amongst others, be they familiar colleagues, nameless refugees or one's guards, the survivor is thrown in upon hirnself. How he copes psychologically with this situation will determine whether he becomes a survivor or remains a victim. It is one of life's paradoxes that survivorship may often be a joyless and a thankless task. Over recent years there have been many advances in survival equipment, technology and training both in the military and commercial areas. Yet, despite such advances, people still perish in large numbers, in very little time and often without any known organic cause. Many will die quietly and with little fuss like a flame that chooses to glow no more. Much equipment sold for survival purposes is designed in warm rooms by people who often have little or no working knowledge ofhow the body performs under threat or in hostile conditions. They are frequently surprised when their products are washed up, still intact and unused, alongside the corpses they were intended to prevent. Some training continues to be based on false premises and assumptions about how the body and brain function. Much of psychological concern has been directed almost exclusively towards understanding and medically treating the aftermath of survival and disasters, as can be witnessed by the recent medical and legal recognition of 'Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder'. Comparatively little effort has been focussed upon understanding and appreciating the psychological functioning of the would-be survivor during the actual period of personal threat, be this war, capsize, air crashes, bombings, incarceration in prisoner-of-war and concentration camps, tornadoes, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, fires in offices, hornes, theatres and so on. It is psychological functioning during survival which this volume seeks to to address. It is intended as a primerin survival psychology. This book is written primarily for those in positions where they may be themselves called upon to survive or IX

x Preface to handle victlms or to plan for potential victims: military personnel, rescue services, medical and health workers, design engineers, se amen and aircrew,offshore and field workers, explorers and adventurers, disaster and civil defence planners and so on. Wherever possible the author takes a pragmatie approach, bedded in only as much theory as is necessary to appreciate a point and illustrated by various examples each of which teils its own tale. Psychology is the science of behaviour. It is this simple but comprehensive definition whieh is adopted throughout this book. Human performance under hostile conditions cannot be explained solely within the realm of psychology. Physiological conditions, such as hunger and thirst, and environmental conditions, such as isolation and crowding, an play their part in destroying a man's being. It is for this reason that physiologically and environmentally associated factors are addressed in this book. It is also said that a person is not a survivor until after he has been rescued. This is not the whole story. The author will argue that a person is not a survivor until he has shown full functional recovery. Anyone who has been physically rescued from a disaster yet still suffers psychologically from its effect to the extent that it interferes in their everyday lives, remains a victim. Although this text is concerned with the psychologieal rather than the psychiatrie consequences of survival it is essential that potential victims and rescuers have a basie acquaintance with the symptoms of a failure to recover and consequently a chapter on Post-Traumatie Stress Disorder is included. Material from many diverse sources have gone into the writing of this book: from the author's own experiences of hostile environments including desert, Arctic, Polar, above and beneath the waves, high altitudes, caves and military environments as well as a number of formal survival training courses, both military and civilian; from his own field and laboratorybased research work; from the work of other scientific researchers, authors and journalists; from emergency personnel, design engineers, mental health workers, police officers and members of the Armed Forces, and above all from the personal accounts of survivors ofboth sexes, all ages and different

Preface Xl nationalities who have, over the years, allowed the author to debrief them, formally and informally, for the purposes of gaining a better understanding of the psychology of survival. These survivors have come from fires (large and smali), shipwreck (short and long duration), aeroplane crashes (military and civilian), shootings, mountaineering and caving accidents, combat, and former prisoners-of-war and concentration camp inmates. University of Lancaster JOHN LEACH

Acknowledgements I would like to express my thanks to those who have helped both directly and indirectly in bringing this book into being. To Mrs Sheila Whalley and Mrs Sylvia Truesdale in the Department of Psychology, the University of Lancaster, for converting this project into text. To Jan, Bryony and Freya. To those who have allowed me to quote extracts from their own material. To those, especially in the Armed Forces, who have given me their unreserved time and personal commitment and, on occasions, their Unit for research purposes and without whom this work would not have come as far as it has. JOHN LEACH The author and publisher are grateful to the following for permission to reproduce copyright material: excerpts from Adrift by Steven Callahan. Copyright 1986 by Steven Callahan. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Miffiin Company. All rights reserved. XlI