No one should be surprised that married firemen assigned to console 9/11 widows are actually falling in love with them, too - it's all part of their "rescue fantasies," top shrinks say.
"That's what firemen do - they rescue people," Dr. Barry Richman, a Manhattan psychiatrist, said yesterday. "They see these vulnerable women and see that they've lost their spouses, and they step into that role. It activates all of their own rescue fantasies."
For the Bravest widows, aside from their vulnerability at the time, they may become more easily involved also because they "probably have strong longings for the archetypal man, strong men who are rescuers, helpers," Richman said.
"The [firemen] then become a substitute for the men they lost," he said.
Psychotherapist Dr. Gilda Carle said it doesn't help that the firemen doing the consoling have probably been married for a while.
"They've settled into family life, and what happens in any relationship happens here: People begin to take each other for granted, and the passion's gone," she said.
"Then all of a sudden, during a very passionate time in our lives, there are these damsels in distress. And what better way for a man to feel like a man than to be a rescuer?"
The situation is as predictable as a secretary and boss falling in love while working grueling hours on a project,- or even a kidnap victim falling for her captor, said Manhattan psychotherapist Lauren Howard.
"When people become intimate, it often happens around vulnerability," Howard said.
That is why all of the experts have recommended extensive training for the firefighters before they embark on their missions of goodwill.
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