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SSW
Prof Gains New Perspective Through Disaster
On the heels of publishing
his latest book, , Josh
Miller, professor of social work—whose career has included
counseling people around the world after devastating crises—experienced
his own life-threatening crisis earlier this year while riding
a motorcycle in Thailand. After an accident, while recovering
from multiple injuries, Miller gained a new perspective that
would inform his work.
By Joshua Miller
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Josh Miller's most
recent book: Psychosocial Capacity Building in
Response to Disasters, published this year by
Columbia University Press. |
I don’t remember the first 45
minutes after the accident but became aware of what was going
on as I arrived in the emergency room of a small provincial
hospital in Pai, in Northern Thailand. I realized that I
probably had broken ribs and was bleeding in many places,
but felt surprisingly detached and vague about what was happening—as
if I was watching another person as the nurses cleaned up
my wounds. I was then taken by ambulance on twisting roads
at breakneck speeds to a larger hospital in Chiang
Mai, where I was treated in the emergency room and kept in
the Intensive Care Unit over night. A nurse named Noh, who
spoke little English, kept a vigil outside my room and cared
for me in my helpless and fragile state. In the morning,
a doctor explained to me that I had suffered a concussion,
broken ribs, and a pnuemothorax. As it turns out, none of
my injuries were life-threatening, although I had to stay
in Thailand for an extra two weeks because it was unsafe
to fly with a punctured lung.
I was traveling in Thailand
with my wife—ironically,
after teaching a course in Beijing about how to help people
and communities who had encountered disasters. About midway
through our trip, I remember riding on a motorbike on a country
road when an elderly couple stepped in front of us, causing
me to swerve to avoid hitting them, which involved ditching
the motorbike. Fortunately, we avoided the couple and my
wife was fine.
Over the past dozen years, I
have responded to local tragedies—such as a homicide
or fatal car accident—as well as major disasters (e.g.
9/11/01 and Hurricane Katrina). Increasingly my work was
international (e.g. Sri Lanka after the Tsunami, Haiti after
the earthquake and, with my colleague Joanne Corbin, Northern
Uganda in the wake of a long-standing armed conflict). After
the Wenchuan Earthquake in Sichuan Province, China, I met
many Chinese colleagues at a post-earthquake conference in
Chengdu. Since then we have become friends and have collaborated
on research and articles, and I regularly co-teach courses
about disasters at the School for Public Policy and Social
Administration at Beijing Normal University.
Like most people
in the helping professions, I get satisfaction from helping
others. After a disaster, survivors have lost a great deal
and are often in a very emotionally open and exposed space;
leading to many deep and meaningful relationships and interactions.
It is an honor to be able to help people at a time of such
great need and I feel privileged and have gained a great
deal from doing this kind of work. But of course, I have
experienced these disasters as the person coming in from
the outside, who has not sustained losses, whose body and
spirit is intact, and although I have absorbed many sorrows
from others, they did not stem from my injuries or losses.
Being in a dependent position and requiring help from others
was a new experience.
I realized that dependency required
surrendering the illusion that I was in control of my life.
For example, I initially resisted my Thai doctor’s advice
about not flying. I was adamant that I needed to return as
scheduled to the U.S. My mother in New York City was failing
and this added to my sense of urgency. In retrospect, I feel
as if I was culturally disrespectful to the doctor, who seemed
disappointed with my reaction but unwilling to argue forcefully
with me. After emailing some medical friends in the U.S.,
I was told that my Thai doctor was absolutely correct and
that flying with a pnuemothorax would be dangerous. When
I returned to the hospital and apologized to the doctor,
he seemed to open up and became a more active collaborator
in my rehabilitation and recovery, explaining to me how much
air my pneumothorax had let in, pointing out which of my
four ribs were broken and in how many places, reassuring
me that I would eventually be able to sleep without pain
and even swim and run again.
I could not dress myself and
needed my wife’s help. She also cleaned my wounds
multiple times a day. At first I could barely walk but would
take tuk-tuks [Thailand's open-air taxis] to one of Chiang
Mai’s
many Buddhist Temples. I found peace sitting in their courtyards,
meditating or reflecting on what had happened, the thin line
between mortality and survival, and feeling the pain but
not fighting it. I found that by yielding to my vulnerability
and lack of control life seemed less threatening and more
meaningful and resonant.
I had to rely on the benevolence
of strangers. Why would they want to care for me—carry
things, open doors, drive me to places, ask me how I was
doing, share stories about their own mishaps, in essence
be kind to me and not exploit my fragility? People were interested
in my story and it was helpful for me to tell it; the telling
and re-telling gave me different perspectives about what
had happened, helped me to integrate the experience, and
pointed me toward a hopeful future. I realized that there
was a social trust that was part of what helped Thai society
to cohere and that I needed to allow myself to accept and
rely on this—an act of faith in a country anchored by its
Buddhist convictions. I slowed down and savored every interaction,
every act of kindness—coveting
every smile. While I initially found it hard to accept the
graciousness of the hotel staff, waiters and waitresses,
taxi and tuk-tuk drivers, and strangers passing me on the
street and greeting me, over time I came to see how they
genuinely wanted to care for me because I was a human being
and that it was okay to accept their kindness.
As I reflected
on this encounter, I realized that I had a taste of what
people might feel when I had responded to them after
a disaster. I had not lost family or friends and my community
was intact, but I had experienced something
life-threatening and in a place without my usual support
systems or cultural signposts. I was initially disoriented
and confused. I lost control over the narrative that I had
anticipated for myself. The depth of connection that I felt
with strangers and the faith that was necessary for being
in such a dependent position helped me to understand in a
visceral and spiritual way what it means to rely on others
who are committed to helping you. I had grasped this intellectually
in the past, but this was a new level of understanding.
In
the end, this was a good experience—something special had
happened to me. It made me feel more connected with people
and more in touch with how dangerous and caring the world
can be. It was also helpful that I was able return to the
U.S. in time to see my mother before she died. Closure helps
us to heal.
Intellectually, it has helped
me to tie together some disparate threads in my academic
life: my antiracism and disaster response work; my participation
in the Evil Symposium for the Kahn Institute, with the notion
of social trust, what it is, how it
is sustained, what happens when it breaks down, and how it
is similar or different in a range of societies and historical
periods; scholarly work that I plan to
pursue.
But on a more personal level,
when I look at some of the scars on my knee and hand, or
at my ring that was dented during the accident and which
I still wear, I feel a bond with the living world, knowing
that death and destruction are always lurking in the shadows;
I feel less fearful of this.
And through this experience,
I had a glimpse of the knowledge and insights that my clients
had often shared with me after experiencing disasters, which
I now cherish all the more. |
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