Trauma specialist relays personal 9/11 experience

Trauma specialist relays personal 9/11 experience
(March 2009 Issue)

The morning of Sept. 11, 2001, was a normal workday for millions of Americans, including those working in the World Trade Center towers in New York City.

Linda Daniels, Psy.D., arrived at work early to meet with clients who worked the overnight shift for the Port Authority of New York/New Jersey, where she was chief psychologist in the Office of Medical Services. Just as she was about to call in a client, she felt the impact of the first airplane hitting the North Tower. The plane she later found out, struck the building between the 93rd and 101st floors. She and her colleagues were on the 62nd floor.

Daniels survived that day. She found herself helping others escape and went on to work with trauma survivors. Because she had been trained to work with trauma recovery, she found herself in a unique position as one who knew from experience and one who had the professional background to help. In 2004, she wrote a book, "Healing Journeys: How Trauma Survivors Learn to Live Again."

After moving to Massachusetts in 2005, Daniels worked with the Commonwealth's Behavioral Health Disaster Response team. She is the co-director of the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology Psy.D. Forensic Concentration Program. Daniels also serves as a consultant with the Transportation Security Administration for Homeland Security.

She spoke with New England Psychologist's Catherine Robertson Souter about her experiences on 9/11 and how it has affected her work.

Q: Take us back to where you were eight years ago.
A: I was living in New York, in Queens, and working in the World Trade Center as the chief psychologist for the Port Authority. I dealt with the employees of Port Authority, which included police officers as well as civilians.

Q: And the morning of September 11th?
A: I was in my office on the 62nd floor of the North Tower and I was just about to call in my first patient. As I picked up the phone, that's when the first plane hit.

My office faced the Hudson River and whenever I picked up the phone, I stood up to look out at the river. So, on impact, obviously the building shakes and I'm looking out the window, the phone still in my hand. I am looking out the window and I see concrete and debris coming down. I see bodies coming down... but nothing is registering. I am looking; I am not taking it in. I do not understand what I am seeing. After what seemed like an eternity, but was probably 10 seconds, the building began to shake and that pulled me out of my paralysis. In the waiting area, the other staff members and employees were confused, wondering, "what's going on?" And one of the nurses said, "Just get out." That propelled everyone to head toward stairs. For the first 10 flights, I was able to run but as we got to the lower floors more people were coming into the stairwell, so it became more of a crawl. It took about an hour to get out of the building. Overall, people were fairly calm. No one really knew the extent of what had happened, which was a good thing because if more knew what was happening, more people would have died.

One woman was having a panic attack. She wouldn't move. I sort of pushed my way toward her and began to rub her shoulder, said it would be okay, I'd be right behind her and make sure she didn't fall. She finally began to move. It took me longer because I had this woman with me who was walking very, very slowly.

Q: How did you not lose your patience and scream at her to move?
A: Well at one point I did get a little impatient. Once we got onto the concourse level - it was like a war zone and I realized something very serious had occurred. The elevator doors were blackened and the revolving doors, you couldn't even go through them because they were so bent out of shape and there was water everywhere. The windows were blown out.

Q: Why would the revolving doors be out of shape?
A: Had the tower fallen already? No. It was from the pressure from above. I knew it happened above me and I was thinking, 'what could have caused so much damage that it blackened elevator doors and mangled revolving doors?'

So I am with this woman who is walking very, very slowly and I'm thinking 'I have to get out of this building.' Finally, we made it out and that's when I saw that the South Tower had been hit.

Q: What happened to her?
A: I found out that she worked for Port Authority. I wound up working with over 200 survivors after the event but she was not one of them.

Q: You spent the next several months working with trauma victims from 9/11 and continued with the Port Authority for the next three years before moving to Massachusetts to work with the disaster response team.
A: One of the things that helped me through this event was being fortunate enough to have a place to have a respite, a condo on the Cape - and I always wanted to be closer to this place. The combination of being offered a position in Massachusetts and being closer to my condo really compelled me to move.

Of course, the first week I am here, what happens? Katrina happens and I find myself at Otis Air Force Base as 200-plus survivors were brought in.

Q: What encouraged you to write the book?
A: My impetus was not about my story per se but a book that would be helpful for any survivor of any trauma. I wanted to show that there are various paths to healing and that one can become more resilient as a result. I wanted to point out that, while people talk about posttraumatic stress disorder, there is also post traumatic growth. There is something unique about the human being in that we all adapt to trauma. It's just the quality of how we adapt is what we need to focus on.

I wrote it for both professionals and for the lay person. It allowed me to show two things; how people transcend traumatic events and, as a psychologist who is a trauma expert, to show the process by which someone in the field goes through her own recovery.

I am working on a proposal for a book on the importance of spirituality and the importance of feeling an everyday sacredness. A lot of trauma survivors, if they are on the path to recovery, get to that place.

Q: What are the most important things you teach mental health professionals about trauma training?
A: The core components of best practice trauma treatment are based on a theoretical, empirical model and should be implemented by clinicians with trauma training, supervision and expertise. There must be an awareness of cultural and ethnic identity because culture is the vehicle through which individuals learn resilience. Also, anyone who is going to be working with trauma survivors needs to be careful about vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue. We can't help but take in some of the emotional pain and we are at risk of experiencing symptoms as well. Our capacity for compassionate empathy is at the core of our ability to do this work and so, self care is important. I'm not talking about major things, but reaching out to family and friends, balancing sleeping and eating habits, talking and doing your own debriefing.