The feeling of abandonment

The feeling of abandonment which a disaster tends to arouse intensifies the anxiety about loved ones from whom one is separated and who may be in the danger zone. The intensification of separation anxiety which a disaster produces often persists for some time after the event. For young children the feeling of abandonment in a disaster situation depends very much on whether they are with their parents or not, and whether their parents continue to appear strong and protective. Where a child is together with his parents in a danger situation, but where the parents become sufficiently alarmed to reveal their feeling of helplessness to cope with the danger, the child also experiences frightened feelings of abandonment. The feeling of abandonment, of loss of the protection usually assumed to be present in the environment, is likely to be evoked by the impact of a disaster regardless of the specific deprivations which one or another individual suffers.