This chapter distinguishes stressors, stress, and distress in the interest of bringing the use of these terms more into line with the way they are used in the stress literature and to reduce the problems of inconsistent usage prevalent in the discussion of stress in everyday life. It discusses two original stress models- biological and engineering. The chapter distinguishes varieties of stress, from life events to chronic to traumas to nonevents to daily hassles, at the individual level. It demonstrates that these distinctions are empirically supported by findings that different sources of stress have distinct impacts on mental health outcomes. The chapter discusses the issue of misconceptions about stress to argue that stress, although a general concept is a concept with theoretical and operational borders. It reviews trends in stress research, which reveal an upward trajectory in the study of all of the kinds of stress.

This chapter summarizes the complex ways in which people experience disasters. These experiences are organized into categories of traumatic stressors, loss, ongoing adversities, and community effects and meanings. The chapter explores the most acutely severe and personally traumatic aspects of disaster exposure: loss of life and traumatic bereavement; threat to life, injury, and fear; and witnessing of horror. Damage to home and property, often accompanied by financial loss, may be the prototypical stressor associated with natural disasters. The acutely stressful experiences of trauma and loss are followed by a host of challenges associated with poor housing conditions, rebuilding, and other stressors in the postdisaster environment. Postdisaster stressors are typically captured in disaster research by measures of stressful life events or chronic stress. Development and validation of quantitative measures that encompass both universal and culture-specific responses to trauma could help address current cross-cultural and transnational assessment challenges.

This chapter examines theoretically the concept of psychological debriefings as forms of intervention following exposure to traumatic stressors. It presents a critical event matrix analysis of psychological debriefings, i.e. a set of factors that can be placed into a conceptual matrix to identify the mechanisms, processes and factors germane to understanding the potential effects of debriefings and various types of intervention. A complex theoretical model of debriefings must specify the quantitative and qualitative differences between events requiring debriefings and how the nature of the traumatic event, in a sense, dictates the targeted interventions that may be required to aid those in need of assistance, either as a direct victim or as a responder. Understanding the applications and utility of conducting interventions after traumatic events will broaden the spectrum of knowledge and make informed choice possible for the greatest good for those who suffer from traumatic exposure.