Survivor guilt

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Survivor, survivor's, or survivors guilt or syndrome is a mental condition that occurs when a person perceives himself or herself to have done wrong by surviving a traumatic event. It may be found among survivors of combat and natural disaster, and in non-mortal situations among those whose colleagues are laid off. The experience and manifestation of survivor's guilt will depend on an individual's psychological profile. When the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV (DSM-IV) was published survivor guilt was removed as a recognised specific diagnosis, and redefined as a significant symptom of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

History

Survivor guilt was first diagnosed during the 1960s. Several therapists recognized similar if not identical conditions among Holocaust survivors. Similar signs and symptoms have been recognized in survivors of traumatic situations including combat, natural disasters, and wide-ranging job layoffs. A variant form has been found among rescue and emergency services personnel who blame themselves for doing too little to help those in danger, and among therapists, who may feel a form of guilt in the face of their patients' suffering.

Sufferers sometimes blame themselves for the deaths of others, including those who died while rescuing the survivor or whom the survivor tried unsuccessfully to save.

Survivor syndrome

Survivor syndrome, concentration camp syndrome, and K-Z syndrome are terms which have been used to describe the reactions and behaviors of people who have survived massive and adverse events, such as the Holocaust in Nazi Germany and the Rape of Nanking. They are described as having a pattern of characteristic symptoms including anxiety and depression, social withdrawal, sleep disturbance and nightmares, physical complaints and emotional lability with loss of drive. Commonly such survivors feel guilty that they have survived the trauma and others - such as family, friends, and colleagues - did not.

Both conditions, along with other descriptive syndromes covering a range of traumatic events are now subsumed under post-traumatic stress disorder.

Social responses

Sufferers may with time divert their guilt into helping others deal with traumatic situations. They may describe or regard their own survival as insignificant. Survivors who feel guilty sometimes suffer self-blame and clinical depression.

Treatment

Early disaster response and grief therapy methods both attempt to prevent survivor guilt from arising. Where it is already present therapists attempt to recognise the guilt and understand the reasons for its development. Next, a therapist may present a sufferer with alternative, hopeful views on the situation. The emotional damage and trauma is then recognized, released and treated. With growing self-confidence the survivor's guilt may be relieved, and the survivor may come to understand that the traumatic event was the result of misfortune, not of the survivor. Once able to view himself or herself as a sufferer, not one who caused suffering, the survivor can mourn and continue with life.

Examples

Rick Rescorla, chief security administrator of Morgan Stanley at the World Trade Center, was said to have acted upon survivor's guilt as a result of traumatic experiences during the Vietnam War. He saved most of Morgan Stanley's 2700 employees and countless others before heading back into WTC Tower #2 shortly before its collapse on September 11, 2001.

Waylon Jennings was a guitarist for Buddy Holly's band and initially had a seat on the ill-fated aircraft The Day the Music Died. But Jennings gave up his seat to the sick J. P. "Big Bopper" Richardson, only to learn later of the plane's demise. When Holly learned that Jennings wasn't going to fly, he said, "Well, I hope your ol' bus freezes up." Jennings responded, "Well, I hope your ol' plane crashes." This exchange of words, though made in jest at the time, haunted Jennings for the rest of his life. Jennings, who later became a country music star, expressed survivor's guilt about Richardson's death. Jennings died in 2002 of diabetic complications at age 64.

References in literature

In Kurt Vonnegut's novel Bluebeard, the protagonist Rabo Karabekian's father had survivor syndrome from witnessing the Armenian genocide. Ironically, he only witnessed a small part of the event; simply hiding in an outhouse and then coming back to a deserted village was traumatic enough. His wife actually witnessed the killings, and pretended to be dead while hiding under corpses, yet she did not develop survivor syndrome. In the book, the character Circe Berman talks about survivor syndrome, saying that it has a hereditary nature.

References

JoNel Aleccia, "Guilty and stressed, layoff survivors suffer, too", msnbc.com, December 15 2008
Raphael Beverley, (1986). When disaster strikes. PP 90-91. Century Hutchinson, London.
Wilson JP, & Raphael B Editors. Theoretical and Conceptual Foundations of Traumatic Stress Syndromes. The International Handbook of Traumatic Stress Syndromes, p 1. Plenum Press, New York. 1993.
VH1's Behind the Music "The Day the Music Died" interview with Waylon Jennings
"Waylon's Buddy: Jennings Never Forgot His Mentor". CMT.

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