COVID-19

Disaster mental health (DMH) counseling, also known as disaster behavioral health, is the treatment of the immediate reaction to, and ongoing exacerbated stress born of, extreme natural or human-made crises, often bringing subsyndromal symptoms to the surface due to the extenuating circumstances that negatively impact individuals’ and communities’ access to internal and external coping and resources (SAMHSA, 2015; Webber & Mascari, 2018). DMH requires a systematic response to return individuals and communities to pre-event baseline functioning, expressed in the two goals of “mitigating the development of serious mental disorders... (and) providing tools that support the natural recovery process that occurs over time for the majority of the affected population” (SAMHSA, 2015, p. 2).