EMDR-IGTP and mass disasters: The need of an effective intervention for psychological distress in disaster prone and resource scarce areas - A study in Indonesia’s context

Mass natural disasters affect individuals and communities significantly, not only economically and socially, but also psychologically. Including in Indonesia which is a prone disaster country. Indonesia's geographical location, which is located between two continents and two oceans, and is at the meeting point of two Pacific and Indian Earth plates, makes Indonesia vulnerable to natural disasters. It is estimated that since 2017 until mid-2019 only, Indonesia has experienced about 5,594 catastrophic events. Many mental health and psychosocial support programs developed to response the need to strengthen the individuals and communities’ resilience since early phase to face the predicament. However, the study of the effectiveness of those many early interventions are underdeveloped. Nevertheless, EMDR-IGTP has been used widely as an intervention to disaster and traumatic experience and studies have shown its effectiveness. Therefore, this paper aims to provide a study of the effectiveness of EMDR-IGTP in the context of Indonesia following the earthquake, tsunami and liquefaction in NTB and Central Sulawesi provinces, with their own social and cultural context including the resource scarcity situations. Consequently, to design an effective and efficient program is a challenge. Although controlled research is needed for further study, the results of the study suggest and support other studies that EMDR-IGTP can be an effective therapeutic intervention for trauma reaction for large groups of people affected by mass disaster. The study also shown that EMDR-IGTP has strength to assess survivors who needed further intervention. Thus, this study is to promote that by implementing EMDR-IGTP, mental health and psychosocial support prevention and intervention program to address the effect of mass disasters can be developed more efficiently and so more affected people can be assisted by the program.

Conference

English

Jackie Viemilawati
Fuye Ongko

Viemilawati, J., & Ongko, F. (2020, January). EMDR-IGTP and mass disasters: The need of an effective intervention for psychological distress in disaster prone and resource scarce areas - A study in Indonesia’s context. Paper presented at the 4th EMDR Asia International Conference, Bangkok, Thailand