'Long road for readjustment' for Johnston

Freed hostage Alan Johnston faces a “long road” of readjustment after his ordeal in captivity, a psychotherapist advised today.

Lucy Beresford of the Priory clinic said his apparent composure in early media appearances could conceal “inner turmoil” adding that hostages she had worked with had felt the need to take each day at a time.

“He will be filled with emotions, lots of different competing emotions, and that’s probably one of the hardest things to process,” she said.

“He’s going to feel quite shellshocked after so much time in captivity and will have had very reduced interaction with people and will have been in very confined spaces.

“He is bound to want to really reconnect with his family, his friends and his colleagues but at the same time he is going to have to get used to the spontaneity of the real world.”

Based on first impressions from television footage and the first BBC interview she said: “His trademark composure is still there, that doesn’t appear to be diminished, (but) how much of that is masking a lot of inner turmoil?

“I would expect that there are a lot of complex emotions going on that we would not and should not be privy to at the moment.”

She said many former hostages felt the need to withdraw, even from those close to them, as they come to terms with experiences they may not have been able to fully process while constantly in the presence of their captors.

“It can be very upsetting for friends and families who are desperate to see you when you do return,” she said.

“But friends and family will have to educate themselves about the changed circumstances.

“In the initial stage of relief there are things that can happen that are very important but in the longer term everybody has to recognise that it is a long road that Alan Johnston is going to begin, being released is just the beginning.”

She added: “It is felt that it is very important to have some form of psychological debriefing with experts who can allow anxieties to come to the fore and you can process them properly because up until that point you have been processing your anxieties only on your own.”

She said that hostages used a range of coping strategies during their time in captivity.

“It would definitely be different for different people,” she said.

“People speak of fantasising about relationships that they have – they try to retain a sense of those relationships by perhaps imagining that that person is in the room and they are talking to them or maybe drafting in their head a letter they might write or something they might say.

“I think you have to recognise that some people may get strength from whatever religious faith they have or spirituality.

“But most hostages speak of having to take one day at a time, (because of) the danger of getting your hopes up.

“I don’t think hostages can bear the disappointment of not seeing those loved ones so they try to keep that in check and try to focus on day-to-day functioning, on keeping yourself sane.”

Looking forward she said: “I think he needs to take each day as it comes because the emotional response will be so overwhelming.

“It is a bit like bereavement, you can’t really know how you are going to react at any given time until you have got back into the swing of the real world.

“I don’t think you should underestimate how much hostages have to re-learn that sense of spontaneity in the real world.”