Tragedy at Virginia Tech: Trauma and Its Aftermath

hate blows a bubble of despair into hugeness world system universe and bang –fear buries a tomorrow under woe and up comes yesterday most green and young —e e cummings (1940) On April 16, 2007, Seung-Hui Cho, a senior English major at Virginia Tech, shot 49 students and faculty, killing 32, before turning his gun on himself and committing suicide in front of wounded survivors. This horrific tragedy now enters history as the largest single act of violence at an American university. What was clearly an incomprehensible criminal act quickly became a mental health emergency that challenged counseling psy-chologists and other mental health practitioners to respond to the needs of families and friends of the deceased, to the wounded survivors, and to a traumatized community—this in addition to the struggle to understand the motivations of this deeply disturbed young man who so carefully planned the murders and his own death. As directors of university counseling centers, we will examine the tragic event, the mental health response, and some of the controversial social and psychological issues that have emerged in the aftermath. SUENG-HUI CHO (1/18/84–4/16/07) What we know of Cho emerges from interviews with family members given to investigators (Virginia Tech Review Panel, 2007) as well as the written and videotaped materials he himself mailed to the media between killing his first 2 victims and the remaining 30. Cho’s family emigrated from Korea in 1992 when he was 8 years old. Quiet and socially anxious as a child, Cho experienced significant academic and social distress during hi