The people dealing with Peter Moore should keep him from the public gaze

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article6971955.ece

Many survivors have a feeling of guilt. Why me? Why have I survived and not my associates? Did I do something that gave rise to their deaths? Or do I have some responsibility, now that I have survived, in some way to honour them?

This is obviously caught up with the whole confusion about coming back to a very different reality.

There is a lot of evidence from the autobiographies of former hostages that they find ways of escaping psychologically. They read or play chess or imagine themselves going on long journeys that they remember very well. Over a couple of years they survive by just treating captivity as daily life.

The important point for the people dealing with Peter Moore will be to try to keep him from the public gaze for a while.

When Terry Waite came back and got off the plane he was quite clearly shocked and stunned. He was a big, powerful man with tremendous personal resources but just facing the crowd of people after having been isolated for so long was a terribly difficult thing.

Surviving kidnapping is rare, particularly when you are looking at groups with a political ideology who often feel that killing the hostage is part of their mission.

Mr Moore is very fortunate to have survived. There will be euphoria and an enormous relief initially and then the need to catch up with all the emotional things that have happened.

We do not know what else has gone on in his life — children, family, whether close relatives have died and other such issues that he may have to come to terms with.

Much depends on the individual and how grounded they are. All the evidence shows that traumatic situations are much mediated by the previous experience that the individual has had and how sound and capable they are before the trauma.

It is whether the individual really has a rooted basis for their day-to-day psychology. Some people would refer to it as a strong ego, a well defended ego, that would help them to cope.

Going into the situation that Mr Moore went into, where he knew that there was a risk of kidnap, may be a strength.

Preparation is very helpful: knowing what the possibilities are and having assessed them and understanding something of the background, and why people may be kidnapping you and what their purposes in doing so may be.

An intelligent man going into a situation he has been advised of has resources to draw on that enable him to cope so he is probably going to pull through it very well.