Risk Limits

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

How to stop worrying about what you cannot influence, and instead focus on your feelings in the experience of coronary crisis?

I see that most readers are inclined to accuse me of professional pessimism - they say, psychologists are always talking about unpleasant things, there would be no positive story to tell. I would be happy, but alas - we are still in the epicenter of quarantine with all the ensuing consequences. Glimmers of light at the end of the tunnel have already appeared, but the situation continues to affect all of us. So the psychologist does not think negatively, but only reflects reality. The epidemic is taking place, the new coronavirus has not yet been sufficiently studied, there is still no effective cure for it, the whole country has been in self-isolation since the end of March.

By the way, the term “self-isolation” itself sounds ambiguous - from whom am I isolating myself, from myself? Or yourself from others? Others from yourself?.. Without a strong mental effort and not understand: whether this is a rest from the usual life, or a voluntary abandonment of it. For this reason, we went through the beginning of self-isolation almost in euphoria: hurray, holidays, you can study, cook, read, draw, communicate with loved ones and do other pleasant, but still inaccessible things due to the total lack of time. At the same time, the virus seemed to be something so distant that quarantine looked like just a preventive measure, perhaps even too harsh. But gradually all the problems of the pandemic observed in other countries came to us. So now we all found ourselves in a situation of deep crisis, for which we were completely unprepared. And is it even possible to be prepared for a crisis? Spoiler alert: you can.

Human development from a series of stress, crises and trauma is normal. And we have an adaptation mechanism, so a crisis situation is not able to unbalance us. Unless it lasts too long, exceeding the resources of our mental capabilities. After all, you must admit that it is impossible without consequences to be in a state caused by abrupt changes that cannot be influenced in the usual ways. Now we have all become hostages to circumstances that go beyond the usual. Trying to somehow cope with ourselves and what is happening around, each of us experiences a powerful emotional stress, which is extremely difficult to cope with. This leads to frequent mood swings, bouts of uncontrollable anger, insomnia, and panic attacks. A long-term crisis threatens to become chronic, leading to other unpleasant consequences and psychosomatic symptoms.

Most of us are afraid of life changes. It is doubly frightening when changes arise under the influence of external irresistible forces. Transferring a child's education online, switching to remote work, reducing earnings or illness cause a sea of emotions. The degree of their depth, of course, differs in each specific case, but the spectrum is the same: from the initial "this will never happen to me" to the final "nothing can be done, we must learn to live in a new way."

This is quite natural, because any changes carry the risk of inevitable losses. And even the calmest people react to losses emotionally, because the protective mechanisms of the psyche are activated. These are known as the five stages of emotional response to change.

Each stage was described in her book "On Death and Dying" by the American psychologist Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, here they are all:

1. Denial.

2. Anger.

3. Bargaining.

4. Depression.

5. Acceptance.

These emotional stages are passed not only by those who are faced with a terminal illness, but also by those who are forced to adapt to sudden drastic changes in life. In a sense, radical change is equal to the loss, death of something that will never be the same. In any change, even a desired one, there is a grain of sadness and sorrow, since a particle of soul and feelings remains in the past.

The Kubler-Ross concept, in essence, combines the reaction to any major transformation - from divorce or injury to illness or loss of income. And it is not at all necessary that the passage of the crisis will follow strictly according to the list. Emotions can randomly change places, return to their original state and jump over each other. Another thing is important: the presence of these feelings, their sensation is an element of the norm. It is worth being wary and turning to a psychologist if emotions seem to be absent at all, they are stably denied or their degree is so great that it leads to a state of passion.

Too acute reactions, alas, do not go away by themselves and require special crisis therapy - the loss can lead to thoughts of suicide, the manifestation of violence in the family and in relations with children, alcohol and other addictions. The basis of crisis therapy is individual psychotherapy, which provides the prevention of severe mental conditions and the experience of socio-psychological adaptation to any changes in life.

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Psychoanalyst Karine Matveeva

Tel. +7 (985) 998-71-37

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Photo: Andrey Malinin, 2014