Coping With War on the Home Front : Mental health: For many, bombardment of TV reports has raised feelings of stress and helplessness. A hospital wants to help.

It sounded like an AA meeting.

“My name is Michael.”

“Hello, Michael!”

But Michael’s problem wasn’t the bottle. Michael’s problem was the war that is happening in his living room--in everyone’s living room. Monday night, Michael pinned a yellow ribbon to his shirt and joined more than 50 fellow Angelenos at Century City Hospital to share his feelings about the Gulf War.

Led by a psychiatrist and a psychologist on the hospital’s staff, the free seminar was designed to help people cope with a war that is having a major impact on those who remain at home.

A burly grandfather, Michael said he was feeling things he hadn’t experienced since he fought in World War II. “What smacked me, what was very deep in the basement. . . .” he said, groping for words for the emotions unleashed by the Gulf conflict, “I thought that was the war to end all wars.” Instead, almost 50 years later, Michael fears for his sons and grandsons as he watches Scud missiles streak through the night sky over Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Psychologist Mort Satten, himself a World War II veteran, led Michael and the others through the calisthenics of self-discovery in order to help them cope. The Gulf War is a stresser, he advised, not unlike the other sources of tumult in their lives.

He asked each participant to find out how the stress was affecting him or her.

“Put both feet on the floor,” he said. “Get centered. . . . Find that place within yourself where you hear the truth. . . . When you’re in touch with that, feel free to open your eyes, come back to the cognizant part of yourself, and, hopefully, you’ll share how you are stressed.”

The participants were eager to share, although one woman asked not to be videotaped or recorded by a crew from CBS’ “48 Hours” that had come to the session to document how Southern Californians do war.

The single mother of a Navy pilot stationed in the gulf said she was all right until she saw what was happening to other pilots. “Not hearing from him makes for anxiety,” she said. Satten asked her what happened when anxiety and a sense of helplessness got the best of her. “I become asthmatic,” she said. The whole experience is worse, she said, because she has no family. Visibly moved, Satten advised her to join or even start a “personal reference group.”

Several participants said they are from Israel or have relatives there and feel guilty that they are safe when their loved ones are in danger. Satten observed that what he was hearing sounded a lot like the survivor guilt experienced by those who had survived the Holocaust.

Liz raised her hand. Her problem was one of conscience. “I’m having a struggle within myself because I’ve always considered myself a pacifist. . . . But I don’t want not to support our people who are there,” she said. “I don’t know what I believe anymore.”

Another woman wanted concrete advice. She can’t tear herself away from the TV, she said, but she thinks her young children should be shielded from the war. “Do I have to wait until the kids are in bed to watch?” she asked.

She shared an experience that could happen only during a war in the age of the telecommunications satellite. One of her Israeli relatives had telephoned her after he heard a bomb explode in his neighborhood. He wanted to know if she could tell him what was going on from watching CNN. She could.

Again and again, participants reported that they are feeling the current conflict inside, experiencing a kind of home-front battle fatigue. Some can’t sleep. Some can’t eat. Laundry goes undone. One woman said she has stopped going to aerobics.

Psychiatrist Wayne C. Sandler said he had not expected the turnout the seminars have had. Originally, only one session was scheduled. Two more were added because of the public’s response. But in retrospect, Sandler said, he is not surprised.

For many people, he said, the war is one stress too many, the last straw. “The majority of people who need mental health services don’t get them,” he said. “The war has scratched the surface and revealed core issues that were troubling people. Yes, they can’t cope with the war. But they really couldn’t cope with other things, either.”

Indeed, the war in the gulf seemed like the least of the problems of one participant. She said she had become obsessed with the war. “My best friend stopped calling me because she said I sounded like an addict.” She mentioned, almost casually, that she was part of an incest survivors’ group and a 12-step program.

As the group broke up, Satten observed that some people might want to take the hand of the person next to them. “Let your good will flow to the right and flow to the left,” he urged.

“There’s no one who is going to kiss this boo-boo and make it go away,” Sandler said as the seminar came to an end. Instead, he advised the participants to gird themselves for the rest of the war “by drawing on the strengths you have.” Develop cohesion, look for support and continue to verbalize, he counseled.

People should also be good to themselves as an antidote to stress, including that brought on by the war, he said.

Every participant was given an information packet that included a list of 39 pleasurable activities that might help, from gardening to “thinking about original ideas.”

There was some laughter at No. 18: “Having good sex.”