Abstract
The present paper integrates an ecological perspective developed in community psychology with research and intervention following disasters and traumatic stress. I approach this topic as a community psychologist who has spent a professional life developing ways of understanding the interdependence of individuals and the community contexts in which they are embedded. The perspective I have found useful is an ecological one, called the “ecological analogy” or “ecological metaphor” by its originator, James Kelly and his colleagues (Kelly, 1968, 1979, 1986, Kelly, Azelton, Burzette, & Mock, 1994; Trickett, Kelly, and Todd, 1972; Trickett, 1984; Trickett and Birman, 1989). To understand the relevance of this metaphor to the area of disaster and traumatic stress, it may be useful to sketch the origins of the field of community psychology, since the substantive areas of community psychology and disaster and traumatic stress spring from different roots.
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Trickett, E.J. (1995). The Community Context of Disaster and Traumatic Stress: An Ecological Perspective from Community Psychology. In: Hobfoll, S.E., de Vries, M.W. (eds) Extreme Stress and Communities: Impact and Intervention. NATO ASI Series, vol 80. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8486-9_1
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