Dissociative Reactions to the Bay Area Earthquake.

This study systematically evaluated the psychological reactions of a non-clinical population to the October 1989 Bay Area earthquake. Within a week of the earthquake, a checklist of anxiety and dissociative symptoms was administered to a representative sample of approximately 100 graduate students and faculty members from two different institutions in the Bay Area. A follow-up study was conducted 4 months afterwards. Analyses of variance for time of testing showed that during or shortly after the earthquake respondents experienced significantly greater number and frequency of time distortions, alterations in cognition, memory and somatic sensation, derealization, depersonalization, and, to a lesser degree, anxiety symptoms and Schneiderian first-rank symptoms. These results suggest that among non-clinical populations extreme distress significantly increases the prevalence not only of anxiety but of transient dissociative phenomena as well, a fact of considerable clinical and theoretical import particularly considering the lifetime prevalence of traumatic experiences among the general population. (Author/LLL)