Americans Unprepared for Psychological Terror

June 29, 2004 -- In their zeal for physical security, U.S. policy makers may be ignoring terrorists' most potent weapon: fear.

Several experts say that the government has not done enough to teach Americans how to reduce or manage their fear of an attack, making it more likely that the next strike will cause the mayhem and disarray that terrorists crave.

They call it "psychological counterterrorism," which is really a fancy term for using education to immunize the public against debilitating fear. And some say the U.S. is way behind in figuring out how to use it effectively in the 21^st century.

"Terrorists magnify fear by trying to instill in every individual the feeling that the next terror attack may have their name on it," says Michael Barnett, MD, a psychiatrist in private practice and aide to Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.).

Threats in Proportion

While fearing terror is quite normal, Barnett points out that spectacular and horrific attacks, such as those on Sept. 11, can make people quickly lose a sense of proportionality. Some 2,760 Americans lost their lives at the hands of foreign terrorists between 1998 and 2002, and 97.5% of those were on 9/11. Meanwhile, heart disease and cancer together killed more than 1.25 million Americans in 2001 alone.

More than 44,000 died in car accidents in 2002, "yet I've never met anyone who says, 'I'm terrified to get in my car,'" says Barnett. He helped author a congressional bill proposing to make psychological preparedness part of the nation's antiterror program by teaching average citizens about "terrorist manipulations" of themedia and the public.

"The way to counter psychological warfare is with psychological warfare," says Jerrold Post, MD, director of the political psychology program at George Washington University, and who has also spent 21 years working with the CIA.

The bill has so far failed to get any serious consideration on Capitol Hill. Even if it does, others warn that little is known how to craft effective messages for the highly diverse, media-saturated U.S. population.

Color Codes Criticized

Mass-psychology efforts are nothing new in America. The Cold War's "Duck-and-Cover" campaign and World War II's neighborhood air-raid drills were much more about national cohesion and empowerment than avoiding German bombers or Soviet nuclear strikes, many historians suggest.

Yet the war on terror's closest analogy, the Bush administration's color-coded Threat Advisory system, has done little to empower Americans and may serve only to confuse them, Post says.

Fire and police departments all use the rising and falling color-coded system to gauge alert levels. "But there is not yet any corresponding clear guidelines for the man in the street as to what to do about the level," Post tells WebMD. Still the national threat level, now at "yellow" for "elevated," is highlighted on every news program whenever it changes.