Disaster psychology

I’ve been preoccupied today with the terrible news from Haiti, and wondering how people cope in such horrific circumstances.  I can only imagine the frantic rescue efforts that must be taking place. The aid that will hopefully pour into Haiti soon will take many forms. I’ve been wondering about the role of psychology in training people to cope with large-scale disasters that have such widespread and far-reaching effects. I discovered, at the University of Denver, program offering a Master of Arts in International Disaster Psychology – apparently this is the first of its kind at a major US university. A quick Google turned up nothing similar in Canada.