Post- Traumatic Stress as a Psychological Effect of the 9/11 Bombings to Americans
On September 11, 2001, America and the whole world witnessed the most recent terrorist attack of a free, democratic country, wherein the World Trade Center Towers in New York City collapsed after two planes had crashed towards the two towers. The said incident was a terrorist attack by Osama bin Laden and his terrorist group Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, and the said terrorist attack resulted to thousands of deaths, which are mostly composed of people inside the building and within its perimeters. In addition to the numerous deaths and physical injuries that the attack had caused, great damage also resulted with the destruction of the World Trade Center Towers. Indeed, the terrorist attack in America had resulted to considerable material and human damage, and these dangerous results as caused by the attack had prompted that U.S. government and society to protect its citizens' and the nation's security and safety through strictly-followed preventive measures such as airport and boundary checks on all points of the country, as well as combating the Al Qaeda group and bin Laden to pay for their crime to the people of the world (many victims of the terrorist attack were of different nationalities).
However, despite the strict policies and measures that he nation, particularly the government, had planned to prevent another terrorist attack from happening again, America and its people is not prepared for the more serious and severe effect of the September 11 bombings: the psychological effect of the terrorist attack to the people's well being. The task of confronting the psychological effects of the bombings only cropped up after the news of the attack and the damage it has caused has been determined; prior to the post- September 11 bombings, the individual reaction to the event, direct or indirect, was left unattended to by many people. As stringent security and safety has been finished implementation all over the country, and the war against the Taliban government, Osama bin Laden, and his group Al Qaeda was declared, the nation had turned its...
This psychological disorder is the most prevalent, and detrimental, psychological effect to individuals who bore witness to the events of September 11, 2001. In an article by the Newsweek magazine entitled, "After the Trauma," PTSD is characterized as people's response to the "grief, shock, fear, and even despair" that they had felt upon witnessing the WTC bombings, most especially the numerous deaths caused by the attack (Cowley 52). Although its direct cause is not yet determined, PTSD symptoms include "intrusive memories" of events that have caused great emotional strain to an individual, which, in this case, is the WTC bombings, "hyper-vigilance," which is characterized through an individual who always seem to be "on alert" for any unexpected events or happenings, and the last symptom is withdrawal, which may be caused by the individual's inability to cope with the memories that a particular experience or event has caused him (Willens 52B).
These three symptoms of PTSD has apparently inflicted 40,000 people, which are composed of "survivors, witnesses, emergency workers," and the psychological trauma that they had experienced displayed the symptoms enumerated above regarding this psychological illness. Cowley's article for the Newsweek includes references to people who have undergone, and is currently coping, from the harmful and detrimental effects of PTSD. The article states two cases of individuals who are directly and indirectly involved with terrorist attack-related events, and have both experienced the psychological trauma called PTSD.
The first case that was cited in the article is the case of Francesco Fiorello, who was an indirectly affected individual with the recent September 11 bombings. Fiorello was indirectly affected by the said incident because he wasn't…
