United States Colleges and Universities
Help for Student Victims of Hurricanes

1. Introduction
2. Understanding Re-entry Issues

The reality is that returning home after a significant experience is not without its stresses. It can become more difficult when your family and friends have also been away and had experiences of their own, and when home itself has undergone significant change. It is important to recognize that you may have some stress upon returning, even though it is your home. This is all apart of the re-entry process. Understanding that this may happen will help you prepare for these feelings.

2. Understanding Re-entry Issues

(The following information has been adapted from the University of the Pacific’s “What’s up with Culture” Module 2.3.1, developed by Professor Bruce LaBrack)

The experience of re-entry may happen because:

It is largely unexpected

Few people prepare for the return home because they expect it to be easy and are surprised when it is not. You may not expect it to be easy, but you may not understand the ways in which it may be difficult, outside what you are expecting.
The reality of home has become very different

When you are away, images of home life can become blurred. Even though you may think you know what to expect upon returning home post-Katrina, you may not be fully prepared for what home now means. It is easy to want to forget or minimize the problems or issues that once were sources of stress in your everyday life, or not want to deal with the new issues that will surround you at home. This becomes more difficult when you have become used to a different place and lifestyle after being displaced.

Change has occurred to everyone

However major or subtle, things are different. You, the people around you, your school, and your community have changed a great deal as a result of Katrina. Sometimes these changes are obvious and immediately observable; sometimes they are "hidden" and only come out under certain circumstances-which are usually unpredictable and therefore unsettling.

People may react to returnees in different ways

People generally expect you to be the same person you were when you left and usually attempt to treat you that way. They may have little patience for a returnee who seems to be significantly "different" or who exhibits behaviors or attitudes that, to them, seem odd or uncharacteristic of that person. Remember that people who remained at home have also changed in some respect after Katrina.

Re-entry may not be recognized nor understood at home

Few people at home are likely to be familiar with the concept of re-entry. Therefore, people often respond to a returnee having difficulty readjusting by bluntly suggesting they "get over it" as though it were a conscious act on their part or that they could control their emotions if they wanted to. Upon reentry the pressure to conform quickly and substantially can be intense and tolerance can be in short supply. It is important to keep in mind that everyone at home has changed whether they left home or not, and as a result there will be a period of adjustment that everyone will experience.

Going home will not be easy, and will be at least as challenging and as frustrating as living elsewhere after being displaced. Even though you realize that going back will not be a simple matter of resuming your earlier routines and reestablishing prior relationships, reentry has its own set of special social and psychological adjustments as well. This is compounded by the fact that due to hurricane Katrina your earlier routines and relationships are likely to have changed-your campus and town may look different and feel unfamiliar, people you knew well may have moved from the area, you may be attending a different school or a different version of your own school.

Re-entry has definable phases.

The relief at being back is often present for some period, followed by some degree of irritation and alienation, with an eventual readjustment.



As the graph shows, the "U-shaped" adjustment curve that roughly illustrates the adjustment to being away and re-entry shock can be modified to a "W," showing the transition process through reentry. While the phases may be quite similar, the timing and duration of them is not. For example, your positive feelings about where you were studying might have lasted a matter of days or weeks (even months), but at home the elation of return can dissolve rather quickly. Returnees can find themselves slipping into deepening hostility or withdrawal in very short time. The feelings that come with re-entry can take hold within hours of arriving home. There are many contributing factors that might intensify and accelerate the process during reentry, not the least of which is you and your family’s situation post-Katrina.

You will undergo a period of adjustment upon your return; to find out more about these adjustment issues, please continue to the next exercise, Adjustment Issues.