Are you still having nightmares about Sept. 11?

        Are you spending your vacation at home this summer because of government warnings to expect terrorist attacks within the U.S. or abroad?

STEPS TO RECOVERY

Harriet B. Braiker's seven steps for managing the emotional aftermath of the attacks on America:     1. Control the images in your mind.     2. Control negative thoughts.     3. Overcome specific fears and anxieties.     4. Overcome helplessness and depression.     5. Create a comfort zone.     6. Make connections.     7. Find your personal courage.

        Dr. Harriet B. Braiker, a California psychologist, has developed a seven-step plan for managing the emotional aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the ongoing war on terrorism in The September 11 Syndrome: Anxious Days and Sleepless Nights(McGraw-Hill; $12.95).

        Dr. Braiker, who lives in Pasadena and practices in Los Angeles, talked about the book and the fallout from the Sept. 11 attacks.

        Question: Did the book grow from concerns you were hearing from patients?

        Answer: In part, I think it did, certainly from seeing the effects in terms of my patients. I also do a lot of speaking and consulting and I travel quite a bit, so my awareness of the impact was quite high. And I was getting a lot of e-mails from people feeling the stress of the Sept. 11 attacks.

        Q: Do you consider the attacks themselves the catalyst of the anxiety you're seeing, or do you blame the continued concern about future attacks and the uncertain economy?

        A: I think it starts with the attacks specifically. Clearly, Sept. 11 is the day that changed people and I think the anxiety and the negative imagery and the intrusive thoughts are very much related to the attacks.

        And recently these non-specific warnings that the government is issuing almost on a daily basis. It's sort of like a drumbeat. It keeps getting louder. And they can't tell us anything except, it's not if, it's when, and we don't know what to do about it. It spikes the anxiety level.

        Q: What's the long-term impact of living with this kind of anxiety?

        A: I think, first of all, the best analogy to me is that if you want to create conditions of anxiety and depression and you want to study tension, you put a lab rat in a cage with no escape and where nothing it can do can make a difference. Then you submit it to random, intermittent electrical shocks. What you get is a highly anxious rat that will begin to develop symptoms of learned helplessness.

        In a lot of ways, that is what's going on with the people in Israel. The suicide bombings happen regularly, randomly. They have better skills than we do in terms of what it means to be alert. They know the signs and signals to look for in terms of anticipating an attack or a suicide bomber.

        Q: Will terrorism change our society?

        A: It has changed the people in Israel. They don't go out of the house as much to the cafes. All of the industries associated with terrorism are suffering terribly. It has definitely changed the society. They're a small society with phenomenal security and phenomenal intelligence and they can't do anything to protect themselves.

        We see that and we hear (Robert S. Mueller, director of the FBI) saying we, too, are going to have suicide bombers and we should expect further attacks.

        I'm not sure about that. I think the problem is when they issue repeated warnings. What they say is resume your normal life. ... Don't interrupt your normal life, but be alert. That's a very mixed message. It's very hard — it's impossible — to remain vigilant all the time. Always looking over your shoulder and always expecting to see evildoers lurking in the shadows creates a state of panic in which you misperceive threats and over-sense threats.

        The other thing is a lot of times they issue these warnings, but they don't tell you anything you can do. That really makes you feel like a sitting duck.

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