Excerpt
SUMMARY: How does one recover from the trauma of being caught in the middle of a terrorist attack? Psychotherapist Mark Colclough, who was in one of the Paris cafés when it was attacked by gunmen two weeks ago, offers some special insight on tools and strategies he has been using to heal. Special correspondent Malcolm Brabant reports.
MALCOLM BRABANT (NewsHour): Back home after witnessing four people being murdered, psychotherapist Mark Colclough is deploying all his professional skills to minimize the anguish.
Two weeks on, how traumatized do you think you are?
MARK COLCLOUGH, Psychotherapist: I can’t scale that really on a one-to-10 scale. I still have signs of trauma and shock. And post-traumatic stress is very much still there.
MALCOLM BRABANT: Can you describe the sort of things that are troubling you still?
MARK COLCLOUGH: Sure, flashbacks of the gunmen, very clear.
There's been a dream that’s recurred several times about me being in the hallway of my house and looking down to the sitting room, and I can see shadows on the wall, and I’m with my travel friend who was with me in Paris.
And I turn around to say to him, look, look, like there’s a break-in. There are thieves in the sitting room. I turn around to look at him, so I know he’s behind me. In the dream, I look back and he's not there. And I look forward again to look into the living room, and the gunman is right in front of me shooting at me this time. And that’s where I wake up.
MALCOLM BRABANT: Do you think you are going to be permanently damaged?
MARK COLCLOUGH: Oh, no. No. I don’t think that at all.
MALCOLM BRABANT: Is that because you personally and professionally have the tools that enable you to deal with this?
MARK COLCLOUGH: Yes. I think I have been in and out of therapy since I was 19. It’s been — always been in my interest has been psychotherapy and psychology. So I'm aware that I have tools and I have quite a robust sense of self.
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