Reflections on Two Decades of Disaster Mental Health: Lessons From Hurricane Katrina and Beyond

Upon the 20-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, we explored how licensed mental health professionals who experienced the disaster firsthand reflected on their experiences and the changes in disaster mental health programming over the past two decades. This article presents reflections gathered from two focus groups with mental health providers in Louisiana, alongside the authors’ personal narratives of experiencing disaster and working in disaster response since Hurricane Katrina.We identified four themes describing the field of disaster mental health: that “nobody was in charge,” recognition that “people aren’t able to fully operate,” the importance of being “embraced by your community,” and a growing perception that people have become “more open to getting help.” We elaborate each using participants and our own reflections in concert with scholarship from the field. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for policy and practice, providing recommendations for moving forward.