In an instant, they were gone. Where the World Trade Center once stood lay a wasteland of twisted metal and debris. Nearly a year later, Ground Zero still gapes like an open wound, but thanks to a major clean-up effort, its cold geometry underplays the enormity of what happened Sept. 11.
For some, however, the mental clean-up has not gone as smoothly. They still are haunted by the image of the once-mighty towers crumbling to the ground. They still are terrified at the sight of a plane flying overhead. And they still wake in terror from a nightmare they cannot shake.
Roger Chabot, a psychologist at New York University's Counseling Services, observed the fallout of Sept. 11 firsthand. With the WTC visible from parts of the NYU campus, many students there directly experienced the attacks.
"We had one student who wasn't able to do anything outside going to class without having her boyfriend around," Chabot said.
In working with several students, Chabot noticed that many of them had trouble sleeping, while others were plagued by unpleasant thoughts after the attacks. But with time, their symptoms gradually subsided and their lives returned to normal.
"With most people, what we saw was that they were able to get over the initial shock," he said.
Those students for whom a return to normalcy seemed impossible usually were dealing with outside issues magnified by Sept. 11.
"For a lot of people who continued to struggle, it turned up the volume on some problems that were already there," he said.
Russ Federman, director of Counseling and Psychological Services at the University, observed a similar pattern, although the extent of grief at the University was generally much less than in New York. Now, nearly a year after the attacks, very few University students still are grappling with issues surrounding Sept. 11.
"Only a few students came to us for any specific need, because most of us went through that experience together. So all we had to do was turn to the person next to us for support," Federman said.
The task of helping those that haven't recovered has forced mental health professionals to reconsider the rules of conventional psychology.
For example, the horrific nature of the attacks can in some cases lengthen the recovery period for someone suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome, a disorder characterized by impaired sleeping and concentration, among other things.
"You can apply post traumatic theory to this, but you have to be flexible with the framework," Chabot said.
An additional problem is that the severity of reactions to Sept. 11 varied greatly from person to person, often directly in proportion to their proximity to Ground Zero. Furthermore, past traumatic events can exacerbate the problem.
"Reactions to traumatic events are always determined by both the event and the person. Some people have severe, lasting reactions and others end up remarkably unscathed. Those who are more likely to have lasting reactions are those who are already more vulnerable for some reason -- for example, if they suffered earlier trauma in life," said Paul Grayson, director of Counseling Services at NYU.
He says that helping people with these issues involves understanding the root of the problem, and then employing traditional psychological methods to eradicate it.
"Helping people cope with post-traumatic reactions involves allowing them to recount what happened," he said. After a sufficient amount of time, they can return to activities they've been avoiding, Grayson added.
But again, most Americans have been able to pick up the pieces and move on. They can travel again without fear. They no longer keep one eye trained on the sky at all times. And a good night's rest isn't such a far-fetched idea.
"In general, I think the majority of people who witnessed the attacks will be fine in the long run," Grayson said.
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