AlterNet: Economic PTSD: The Psychological Effects of the Recession

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Economic PTSD: The Psychological Effects of the Recession

By Michael Bader, AlterNet. Posted January 14, 2009.

We feel responsible for things we didn't do and helpless in the face of things we couldn't do.



Having recently lost 40 percent of my own retirement savings, it's not hard to empathize with others in the same boat, including their feelings of helplessness, rage, guilt and shame.

Empathy for oneself and others is necessary but not sufficient. The antidote to helplessness begins with compassion and acceptance, but it doesn't end there. It involves grief but can't rest there. We need psychological healing but not apart from healing the world.

Outrage is part of the healing that we need. But our public outrage at being betrayed by the greed, mismanagement and political shenanigans that created the current crisis is compromised by all the subtle and secret ways that we avoid confronting painful feelings of helplessness and, instead, irrationally hold ourselves accountable.

This creates a political problem: While the helplessness we feel is legitimate, our ability to rationally respond to it by trying to correct its real structural causes is compromised by the guilt and shame that we've internalized.

Our real responsibility to change the world -- something we can do -- is undermined by the false and self-blaming feelings of responsibility for things that we didn't and can't do. The paradox is that we have to face the ways that we're really helpless in order to own the ways that we're not. .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/workplace/117762/economic_ptsd%3A_the_psychological_effects_of_the_recession/