Amrita Tripathi, Mumbai: When terror strikes, it's not just a physical tragedy. It's just as important to address the fall-out in terms of mental health.

Those affected by the Mumbai blasts will gradually try to come to terms with the trauma. But mental health experts say that the impact is yet to sink in.

"Life is unpredictable and such an event only underlines that. My recommendation to people would be one of the worst ways of coping with it is avoidance," Psychiatrist Dr Achal Bhagat says.

Victims and even bystanders may start experiencing flashbacks and a generalised sense of anxiety. It's important to seek psychological support so that there's no permanent impact due to the trauma.

Doctors advise that you talk to people, structure your time, stay occupied, and most of all seek help, to learn to challenge the negative thoughts that you may be having.

Also as a parent, you need to be aware that even watching the disturbing images on TV is having a huge impact on your children.

"I have a nephew who talks about death at the age of three. While my psychology textbooks say that below seven kids don't have a concept of death, we're living in a world where death is a strong reality, where the end of life is very visible, very traumatically visible," adds Bhagat.

So how do you deal with the trauma of what's going on, without passing on the fear?

"You need not necessarily sit down and tell them there's a terror attack and we need to be prepared, that fear strategy will not work. But if you have a good relationship with your child where you are talking about elephants and parrots and water and sun and life and love and ice cream, you can possibly also talk about how loss happens," says the doctor.

Childern & Trauma
Avoid showing children disturbing images
Don't evade the subject
Don't fixate on the death and destruction

It's especially important when disaster strikes that families are able to communicate and be there for each other.