How a pandemic shock can inspire personal growth

Jamil Zaki is Professor of Psychology at Stanford University and author of “War for Kindness: Building Empathy in a Torn World”.

What if an epidemic shock could inspire personal growth around the world?

The psychological cost of covid-19 is still evolving but really amazing. Calls to mental health and the hotlines of the suicide crisis have risen, and anxiety and depression have more than tripled compared to early 2019. The epidemic is a slow and distressing surrounding tragedy that calms stability. Safety outside our homes is absolutely not guaranteed. Traditional places of asylum, including schools and places of worship, pose a threat. Economic and social systems collapse below us.

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The sudden realization of how little our rule reminds us of how researchers described trauma: as seismic psychological events. People tend to think that the world is generally safe; Shocks like war and assault shatter these assumptions and make it difficult for survivors to restore a sense of normalcy.

A trauma lens provides a useful perspective to understand how the epidemic is affecting mental and emotional health, and, surprisingly, some hope for how we all have grown. When a building earthquake strikes, architects are unlikely to rebuild what was there exactly as before. The lifts may be very small, and the lanes are very dark. Reconstruction offers an opportunity to build back better.

Trauma survivors often do something similar. They may change jobs to better fit their values ​​or search for expatriate relatives. Many have reported greater purpose, spirituality, empathy and appreciation for life, as well as strengthened relationships. These positive changes are known as Post Traumatic Growth, or PTG. Although less known than PTSD, PTSD appears to be common. A 2019 meta-study found that more than half of the more than 10,000 trauma survivors surveyed reported at least some growth.

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Crises can produce a collective version of PTSD. More than 60 years of research shows that after bombings, tsunamis, earthquakes, and hurricanes, people tend to work together, work selflessly and take care of each other deeply. After the attacks of September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, volunteering, and charitable donations increased across the United States. Similarly, surveys of psychologists after the 2004 bombings in Madrid found that the attacks attracted socially-attracted Spaniards – leading to a wave of emotional conversations that led to lower unity and greater solidarity. Surveys of war-torn societies around the world have found evidence of significantly increased civic participation and altruism.

Despite his horrors, the Covid 19 pandemic has revealed the wells of sympathy and solidarity. In many countries people have devised forms of “mutual assistance” to help vulnerable neighbors. Social estrangement is a global business of social cooperation, a work in which people are more willing to engage when it is framed as a good deed rather than self-preservation.

PTSD differs from recovery. It is not a return to “normalcy”, but rather a stronger new normalization. While, of course, no one wants a pandemic, the United States can in many ways benefit from cultural transformations. In the four decades before the outbreak of the coronavirus, depression and isolation increased steadily, while sympathy diminished. The 2018 General Social Survey found that only 35 percent of Americans think most people can be trusted. About half of the respondents believed that people “mostly search for themselves”. These situations harm mental health and relationships.

Disasters offer an opportunity to counter this ridicule through expanded interdependence and a common purpose. With our sense of well-being, people may separate their priorities individually and collectively, and rebuild a greater focus on society.

The epidemic has revealed widespread disparities. Black Americans died more than twice the rate of whites, not just in New York. Poor workers across the country did not have the luxury of shelter at home. Millions of Americans feel sad, and tens of millions are unemployed. In the wreck of Covid 19, our community can make enormous, much needed improvements. If the covid-19 test is done for free, then why isn’t cancer screened? What does our society owe to the primary workers who risked themselves to protect others?

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As with the Great Depression and the Second World War, this epidemic has sparked interest in broader economic safety nets. An April poll found that two-thirds of Americans supported global primary income for at least a year after the end of the epidemic. Support for health care grew for all and individual health care. The repercussions of public health and economic crises are likely to be felt for years, but facing these difficulties together could be the first step towards creating something better than what existed before the epidemic.

People are used to getting used to things. The rhythms of our lives and the norms of our culture are like the clothes we wear in the morning and hardly notice at lunchtime. Forget that there could be anything else. Disasters, such as shocks, cause great instability. They break patterns. The ordeal, whether personal or collective, reveals to us: it is not complete, leaving the options for choice. The question is whether and how we choose to grow.

Read more:

Leonardo Trasande and Benard Dreyer: the epidemic will haunt today’s children forever. But we can help them now.

Pranav Nanda: The coronavirus is no excuse for ignoring armed violence in the capital.

Jamil Zaki: Coronary antivirus looks like fighting a war. It might bring us together.

Kenneth R. Aline: How covid-19 would be a perfect storm for black Americans

David R. Williams: Stress was already killing black Americans. Covid-19 makes it worse.

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