Earthquake Jitters

"She's afraid to go to sleep, and she wakes up every time the bed moves. Her eyes get huge, and she quivers and shakes. Sometimes she walks in her sleep." Los Angeles Housewife Emilia Harwood was describing her daughter Charisse, 8, the victim of a new ailment that in the past three weeks has hit both adults and children in Southern California: earthquake jitters. The psychological damage is widespread and has affected thousands; psychotherapists have had to treat at least 500 parents and children in hastily arranged free group sessions. Although some victims recover rapidly, others are expected to suffer for months to come.

Triggered Anxiety. Among children, a typical symptom is fear of leaving their parents. Twenty-five percent of schoolchildren in the affected area stayed home on the first day schools reopened; some, including Charisse, agreed to return only if their parents drove them to and from school. Says Secretary Joyce Shahin of her seven-year-old son: "He has got very clingy--he wants me to sit in the bathroom and talk while he takes a bath, and he wants to sit on the same chair with me." Afflicted adults show extreme exhaustion, an unusual need for emotional support, and inability to sleep.

The common denominator in many of these symptoms is excessive anxiety triggered by the realistic fear of a quake's havoc. Explains Dr. Stephen Howard of the San Fernando Valley Child Guidance Clinic: "If something bad happens, children feel responsible: maybe their bad thoughts caused it." Adults, too, can regress to atavistic fantasy. "Their first response is to think it's the wrath of God, maybe even the Apocalypse," says Dr. Edward Stainbrook of the University of Southern California.

Psychoanalyst Ralph Greenson lists other causes of anxiety: the unexpectedness of the quake, and the fact that there is no place to hide. "Mother Earth was good, reliable--and suddenly she betrays you," explains Greenson. "Parents are supposed to be towers of strength--and yet the child finds adults are fearful too. Home, the child's symbol of safety, has toppled in his mind." Sudden disaster, Stainbrook concludes, "destroys one's confidence in the orderliness of the world; people feel they can't predict their own futures."

Shaken by their own loss of confidence, mental health workers in several Los Angeles agencies spent the day of the quake talking out their worries in group sessions, then offered similar sessions for ordinary citizens. The response was so overwhelming that the schedule of meetings is still being expanded. All the therapists are taking a similar tack: children are reassured that neither they nor their parents were harmed. People are advised to admit their fears, and to "deal with the reality of the situation." Explains Howard: "We emphasize how sturdy most houses are, that in most places only a few glasses were broken, that people are not as fragile as glasses." Stainbrook proposes more than just talk. Instead of closing off disaster areas, he says, authorities ought to "funnel people through on guided tours, so they can see what really happened and come to terms with distorting anxieties."

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