ABSTRACT
A disaster sharply reduces the negative component in ambivalent feelings towards others. In anticipation of the outcome of a disaster, the image of oneself as helping others afterwards also may serve to blot out the picture of oneself as reduced to helplessness or beyond help. The occurrence of a disaster also carries the significance for some individuals that the authorities, human or supernatural, are unable to keep destructive forces under control. The destructive force which rages in a disaster may afford a vicarious gratification to the destructive impulses of those who witness it as well as a stimulus to the unleashing of impulses ordinarily held in check. The sense of loss of control of bad impulses and loss of protection of good objects is expressed in the feeling: this is madness. The individual who has strong attachments and a sense of responsibility for others may also utilize these defensively to reduce alarm about his own fate.
