Warning: Reports of CT Shootings Bring Risk of Vicarious Trauma

Heavy-hearted, I am republishing this blog post in response to today’s shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT. Please take good care of yourselves and your loved ones as best you can, and consider these cautions to mitigate the ripple effects of this tragedy.

Original post:

After crimes like this, we are all at heightened risk of vicarious traumatization from immersion in detailed news reports. Remember what it was like after 9/11. Remember how we learned later that some children were traumatized by the replayed images of the planes hitting the towers; to their young minds, the event was happening over and over.

Adult minds are susceptible in some ways to the same effect. For some people, repeated exposure to graphic reports can create psychological trauma, even though the person wasn’t directly involved in the experience. As the news reports of this event continue to roll in, I suggest you take these precautions:

• Limit your exposure to news reports of this crime. Do NOT read every story or watch every video. This might require turning off the TV and disconnecting from social media for a day or two, or more.
• Make a strong, conscious effort NOT to visualize the events described. For some people, picturing it can overwhelm your ability to maintain your own sense of safety. If you are a person who prays or meditates, avoid picturing the events during your prayers or meditation. You can pray or meditate effectively without visualizing the violence of this event.
• If you experience anxiety over this event that interferes with your life (e.g. trouble sleeping, eating, working), talk to someone–a counselor, spiritual advisor, mentor, or understanding friend. Understand that it is possible to be harmed at a distance by events like this. If it happens to you, don’t ignore it.

If you empathize with victims of events like this, you might feel it is your duty to “bear witness,” to follow the news and to hear and see the accounts of the tragedy. This is untrue. It is NOT your duty to experience this. Please, protect yourself from vicarious harm.

 

Warning: Reports of CO Shootings Bring Risk of Vicarious Trauma

After crimes like the mass shooting in a Colorado movie theater last night, we are all at heightened risk of vicarious traumatization from immersion in detailed news reports. Remember what it was like after 9/11. Remember how we learned later that some children were traumatized by the replayed images of the planes hitting the towers; to their young minds, the event was happening over and over.

Adult minds are susceptible in some ways to the same effect. For some people, repeated exposure to graphic reports can create psychological trauma, even though the person wasn’t directly involved in the experience. As the news reports of this event continue to roll in, I suggest you take these precautions:

• Limit your exposure to news reports of this crime. Do NOT read every story or watch every video. This might require turning off the TV and disconnecting from social media for a day or two, or more.
• Make a strong, conscious effort NOT to visualize the events described. For some people, picturing it can overwhelm your ability to maintain your own sense of safety. If you are a person who prays or meditates, avoid picturing the events during your prayers or meditation. You can pray or meditate effectively without visualizing the violence of this event.
• If you experience anxiety over this event that interferes with your life (e.g. trouble sleeping, eating, working), talk to someone–a counselor, spiritual advisor, mentor, or understanding friend. Understand that it is possible to be harmed at a distance by events like this. If it happens to you, don’t ignore it.

If you empathize with victims of events like this, you might feel it is your duty to “bear witness,” to follow the news and to hear and see the accounts of the tragedy. This is untrue. It is NOT your duty to experience this. Please, protect yourself from vicarious harm.

 

Someone to Talk To

With yesterday’s guilty verdict against Michael Jackson’s physician, we’re hearing once more about the entertainer’s battle with insomnia and chronic pain and the catalog of pharmacological solutions that were thrown at the problem. It makes me wonder: What about therapy? Did anyone attempt to address his physical symptoms as signs of emotional pain? Amid all the shots and pills, did he have a mental health professional to actually, simply, talk to?

Emotional distress can and often does cause physical problems. Insomnia, for example, is a common symptom of both anxiety and depression. Physical pain can begin from illness or injury, of course, but it can also originate in emotional pain. Either way, each amplifies the other: The more your body hurts, the more upset you get, which makes your body hurt even more, and on and on.

Having someone to talk to can make all the difference. Sometimes a friend or family member can fill the role, but if not, it’s not their fault or yours. A large part of a counselor’s training is in the basics of how to listen, how to avoid unhelpful responses, and how to create a safe space for you to speak your truths, your worries, and your pain. Medication can be an essential part of treatment for both physical and emotional ailments, but it’s often not the sole solution.

 

Content Is Not Garbage

I attended a workshop recently in which the presenter, talking about clients’ thoughts, said, “Content is garbage!” His topic was ways to help clients reduce anxiety, and he said that focusing on the content of a person’s thoughts–the story, the interpretation, the “why”–is counterproductive.

This presenter is well-known for his work with anxiety. He showed an impressive filmed demonstration in which he used his techniques to help a client recognize that her anxiety is controllable. As a counselor, I can see how his approach could be a life-changing breakthrough for some clients.

But there were two problems.

First, this presenter wasn’t speaking to a group of therapists. This was a conference for professionals, mostly organizers and coaches, who work with chronically disorganized and hoarding clients. The few therapists in the room could be expected to recognize the limitations of this approach, particularly with our client population, but those without mental health training were placed at an unfair and potentially harmful disadvantage.

The second problem: Content is not garbage to our clients. In fact, this memorable exclamation carries a heavy emotional charge of its own for our clients who struggle with their attachments to objects. At first, many in this audience thought the presenter was saying that our clients’ belongings are garbage. Once we realized that he meant the content of their thoughts, it was less offensive, but the idea still didn’t sit right with many of us.

We can’t address hoarding or even the relatively simpler problem of chronic disorganization without addressing content–both the cognitions (thoughts) and the emotions attached to the disorganized or hoarded materials. It is ineffective and often harmful to tell a client, “It doesn’t matter why you’ve kept it, you just have to get rid of it” or “It doesn’t matter why you feel anxious about change; you have to just change.” A person can’t understand her or his own mind without reconciling the “why”; to charge ahead with change that tramples that “why” is nothing more than a forced cleanout.

Content is not garbage–it’s gold. Our challenge is to help clients recognize that the value they perceive in their excess belongings does not reside in the items … it resides within themselves.

 

National PTSD Awareness Day

Today is National PTSD Awareness Day. Seems like everyone has heard the acronym “PTSD,” but do you really know what it is?

• Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
• Caused by a (or more than one) traumatic event that generated intense fear, helplessness, or horror.
• In the news often in relation to veterans, but many civilians have it too.
• Occurs in about 8% of the general population and 10-30% of combat vets (varies by war). Chances are you know someone struggling, possibly undiagnosed, with PTSD.
• Common causes include any form of assault, victimization, disaster, or situation that put the person in fear for his or her life or someone else’s.
• Symptoms can mimic depression, other forms of anxiety, AD/HD, sleep disorders, learning disability or conduct disorder in children, and other physical and emotional conditions.
• Not a character flaw or weakness.
• Treatable.
• More info: http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/post-traumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd/index.shtml
• And more info: http://www.ptsd.va.gov/index.asp

 

Brains Explained

Just found this amazingly useful site: http://thebrain.mcgill.ca/flash/index_a.html, affiliated with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research’s Institute of Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addiction.

Got brain questions? They’ve got the answers, at beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels, with detailed graphics, guided tours, and more. If you’re a neuroscience geek like me, or if you just want to understand exactly what depression or anxiety does in your brain, here’s your source.

 

If I’m seeing a counselor, does that mean I’m mentally ill?

Not necessarily. Mental health counselors like myself, and also social workers and psychologists, often help clients with problems caused by life circumstances—things like the typical ups and downs of adolescence, the frustration of disorganization in daily life, or the emotional impact of job loss, divorce, the death of a loved one, or witnessing or being the victim of a crime.

All of these situations can be devastating to the person experiencing them, and they can cause significant symptoms of anxiety and depressed mood, but for most people they do resolve over time—and usually more quickly with a counselor’s help.

If these “adjustment disorders,” as we call them, do not improve over time, they can evolve into a diagnosable mental illness such as major depressive disorder, panic disorder, or post-traumatic stress disorder, but they can still be helped at that point. Of course, it’s best to seek help sooner and spare yourself the escalating emotional pain, but if you can’t or don’t, effective and empathic help is still available.

I understand that no one wants to be “labeled” as mentally ill, so people are often uncomfortable with the names of particular diagnoses. Unfortunately, our society continues to harbor a bias against mental illness as somehow shameful or indicative of weakness or laziness, unlike most physical illnesses which are seen as evidence of bad luck rather than bad choices. Despite ample research defining mental illnesses as involuntary, some people still believe that one should just “snap out of” any negative emotion or destructive behavior, or simply try harder to overcome any learning disability or developmental delay.

It doesn’t work that way. Just as you wouldn’t trust a doctor who tells you to “snap out of” diabetes or arthritis, you shouldn’t expect yourself to get over a cognitive or emotional problem by applying willpower or simply ignoring it. Mental health professionals are here to help you with insights, techniques, and sometimes medications that give you more tools to address the issue more effectively. Your effort is still the most important component, but it doesn’t have to be the only tool you use.