The Psychology of Recovery Recovery from a natural disaster includes more than finding a place to stay and acquiring new belongings. It means understanding the rules concerning when and how you can clean up your home, coping with television cameras and sightseers who drive by and stare and processing the anger and disappointment of finding looters stealing your remaining possessions. It can also mean learning to discriminate the hucksters from the helpers, the good guys from the bad, at a time when you are vulnerable. Recovery also means negotiating with insurance companies and contractors, filling out seemingly endless forms and moving from one temporary home to another. It also means coping with life's everyday problems while in a very unsettled position.
Recovery also encompasses the re-establishment of an emotional equilibrium.
All survivors, regardless of age, are affected. And, when a small community is struck by calamity, a significant number of persons become hidden victims. While many survive ostensibly appearing unscathed, friends, neighbors and family may not have been so lucky. However, as the reverberation continues, it leaves a rupture in community life and many become secondarily affected by another's tragedy. Nearly everyone is emotionally affected to some degree.