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When she began interviewingtherapists, one ofSeeley’s first observationswas their struggle to properlylabel their patients’suffering. Existing psychiatriccategories did notfully capture it.Professor Karen Seeleyfrom Marylene Cloitre, a research and clinical psychologistand trauma specialist at NYU. Cloitre brought to the projecta team of psychologists who advised on interview techniquesand provided professional services to subjects and researcherswhen needed. Sometimes, however, their services as therapistswere not wanted. Many interviewees were willing to talk withthe oral historians because they were not psychologists. Clarkcould understand that reaction. “Human suffering precedesand supersedes medical diagnosis. It can’t be fully expressed.”Who Counselsthe Counselors?Practicing psychotherapist and anthropology professor KarenSeeley was not a trauma specialist when she began her 9/11-relatedresearch. In fact, she didn’t want to research September11th at all. “My first instinct was to find some distance.” In2002, however, Columbia sociologist David Stark contactedher. He was completing a study of the response to 9/11 in thecity and wished to include specific occupational groups (seepage 26). He asked if Seeley would be interested in studyingtherapists and their post-9/11 work.When she began interviewing therapists, one of Seeley’sfirst observations was their struggle to properly label theirpatients’ suffering. Existing psychiatric categories did not fullycapture it. “There was a general consensus that [Post-TraumaticStress Disorder (PTSD)] was the closest thing psychiatryhad to offer” in terms of defining what was happening. PTSDrequires the existence of an external event in order to be diagnosed,and 9/11 fit the bill for many New Yorkers. PTSD, however,was not included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manualof Mental Disorders until 1980, and many of the therapistsSeeley was interviewing had no training or experience with it.Before September 11th, few therapists specialized in trauma.Though Seeley thought that “PTSD may not have been themost appropriate way to categorize what people felt after 9/11,therapists started to take crash courses in trauma just to try toget a sense of what it was and how to treat it.”Seeley also found that therapists were struggling with morethan their professional ability to address patient trauma. Theywere struggling with trauma themselves. “I anticipated thattherapists would have processed their personal reactions to9/11. I was surprised to see how desperate many of them wereto talk…about what they were going through [in their personaland professional lives]. They were having very powerful reactionsto their work that they couldn’t quite get a handle on.”For many of the therapists, meeting with Seeley was the firstopportunity they had in over a year to reflect on their own ex-Link back to contents page24 Superscript