Here at Counselling Connections this week our discussion was about not being here. Everyone who works as a therapist undergoes their own therapy. It is a core part of any training programme and it serves the therapist well in their work. In our practice we like to avail of our experience of our own personal therapies to continually keep in mind what the experience of coming to therapy is like. And even what it is like not to come at all. Because this week when we sat down to talk we drifted onto the subject of those days when you really don’t feel like going to therapy. You just don’t want to go there at all.

There was general agreement that an important part of getting past any reluctance to attend is to discover the reasons why you feel like avoiding therapy in the first place. Sometimes these things are difficult to put words on and instead of being openly discussed they get played out. What can happen is that we can cancel sessions at short notice or find any number of reasons to skip a week here and there. This all adds up to a playing out in our attendance or lack of it some inner fear about going to therapy. Things that are difficult to put words on are sort of a specialty of ours here and we find that if this fear can be gently and respectfully explored it can be overcome.

We feel that it is important not merely to try to overcome a resistance but rather in the first instance to respect it. What we are paying respect to in this regard are the very real reasons why that resistance might be there at all and where we might have learned it from. There may well be very good reasons why we feel resistant about something. These defences which we have built up over the course of our lives are in place in order to protect some vulnerability in us. We are firmly of the view that they ought to be treated sympathetically. At the same time we will make no progress if they are not faced in one way or another.

We might want to avoid therapy because we feel reluctant to face something painful from our past. Even though we might feel on one level that to work through this could be beneficial we may still fear that to bring it up may leave us feeling overwhelmed. We may have feelings of guilt, shame or regret and it would be natural to feel a temptation to avoid experiencing these again. Sometimes a good first step is to be able to say out loud that there is something difficult that we feel afraid to talk about and that we don’t want to talk about it. In our practice we are inclined to simply acknowledge this and the fact that it has resulted in a reluctance to go further. Then the way is open to explore what exactly it is that we are fearful might happen.

It could be that one fear is of what way the therapist will react. Building up a relationship of trust with your therapist is important in allaying this fear. It is not unusual either for us to try to minimise traumatic events to try to cope with them. We may be fearful of an explosion of strong feelings if we finally face up to these events. Sometimes a reluctance to engage may be about something more basic like a fear that you may not be fully heard or understood. It could be that you have experienced those same feelings at other times in your life and that the risk of a repeat is not worth taking. This is an understandable fear.

We would hope that to get in touch with an ability to discuss all these things with your therapist will open a path to more freedom in expressing the story of your life. Fears, resistance and defences can be overcome in a respectful atmosphere of honest enquiry. The purpose after all is not to hurt you in any way but to open up new ways of expression and new understandings. Our hope is to be present with you as these new insights are learned and mastered and as fear of the influence of the past is finally overcome.

Counselling Connections, Dundalk.

Here in Counselling Connection this week and last we watched with interest the story of wildfires in the hills both locally and in other parts of the country. There were regular updates on news bulletins and it seemed briefly that the country was transfixed by the spread of fire in the hills and the efforts of fire-fighters and volunteers to get on top of the situation. Experts explained that lack of rain for some weeks had increased the chances of fire especially taking into account the amount of dead vegetation remaining after the snow and ice of recent months. Despite the heroic efforts of many we were left at the mercy of the elements and it was a change of wind direction and the welcome sight of rain clouds that finally brought relief.

In our moderate climate we rarely have the extremes of weather, of ice and snow followed by dry, sunny spells that facilitate the spread of wildfires. Our reactions to these events as they unfold interest us here and we like to take time to pause and ponder and talk about what might be going on for people. Our modern lifestyles leave us somewhat insulated from the cycle of the seasons for example. We have electric light and central heating and can continue to live and work without paying much attention to light or dark. Only in the case of extremes does the weather impinge on the security that we have built up against it.

The changes in the seasons; and even wildfires are parts of a natural cycle. We can be quite fearful of the destructive force of nature and we try, where possible to keep it at bay. And we have succeeded in this to a large extent with the way we live. Similarly, and maybe even without being aware of it, we try to flatten out the cycles of ups and downs in our emotional lives. There may be natural phases in life where our happiness or satisfaction levels dip or peak like periods of drought or flood in nature. It seems like we do what we can to avoid what might not only be a natural process but one which may have certain advantages.

We seem to be more inclined for example to attach to a single partner for life. We may also live for most of our lives if not in a single house but at least in a single area. Similarly, we may work at the same kind of work for most of our lives, sometimes even in the same company. We gradually make our mortgage payments and scrimp and save into our pension funds. We keep our property in good order and we become regular in our habits, commuting and working, sometimes maybe suffering the present in favour of the promise of a better future to come. We may even cling to all these things, putting our hopes, dreams and expectations for some kind of salvation into how we live our daily lives. A wildfire of any sort that might threaten this status quo would be most unwelcome.

Wildfires do come in life however. This may be in the form of the breakup of a relationship or marriage or the loss of a job or in a build up of financial commitments which suddenly seems crippling. These things can happen gradually but appear suddenly and can really shake our world and our confidence. It is not uncommon in these times for hardworking, honest people to find that their house is now worth less that what they owe. This can be very distressing. A company that was considered blue chip a short number of years ago can now be barely solvent and under threat of collapse. And for the people who work for these firms and who have come to rely on them for a living and for making mortgage and pension payments it brings great uncertainty.

An economy can be depressed just like a person can. Getting out of a depression can often involve considering the things which were in place leading up to it and a re-ordering of these. In an individual it may mean looking at their career and deciding on a change of direction. Sometimes the catalyst for this is outside our control and this makes all the more difficult. It is also a painful fact that relationships come to an end. This also involves an amount of introspection and hurt and a coming to terms with fundamental parts of our selves. These things can all feel very destructive and threatening to the lives we have built up and indeed they are. However, from the ashes of an unwelcome wildfire in life we can find fertile ground for new growth. It may take an amount of courage and hard work and progress might be slow. We are fearful of major change in life and may avoid it until circumstances force it on us. The transformations; the new growth we can bring about in love and in work following a period of crises can be just reward for enduring the wildfires that life may bring.

Counselling Connections, Dundalk.

Here at Counselling Connections this week one of our number, who shall remain nameless, reported for work complaining of pains and aches. They had gone on a long cycle over the weekend; their first time out on the bike for some time and were feeling the after effects. They also had the enjoyable experience of teaching a child to ride a bike for the first time. It a wonderful thing to witness the exhilaration on a child’s face when they master this basic skill; it is something which had the feel of a rite of passage about it. All you need, it seems is the basic belief, in your body, that if you continue to pedal you will be able to propel yourself forwards. After that the wobbly steering and early mishaps become things of the past and are replaced by a confident, fluid motion; a mastery that we usually retain for life, even allowing for long periods out of the saddle.

This got us thinking and talking about trust. The first difficulty we encountered was to be able to say what trust is. It seems to be something that in the first instance we take for granted in life. Trust seems to be a default position. It seemed like we were heading towards the understanding that trust is in place until some event occurs that causes us to doubt it or to lose it altogether. When we reflected on this further it seemed to us that trust is actually learned in ways similar to learning how to ride a bicycle. That through being held safely as a baby a person develops a trust which they feel in their body. This trust gives confidence in our environment and even consolation in times of distress.

This carries us through the early developmental stages of life which include the exciting new adventures of learning how to walk and to talk. In these instances we do not know how to do either but we learn through a process of experimentation and determination.  We learn to trust that a step will take us to another and another and so on. We fall over and get up and try again. We see what it is that we want to achieve and we keep trying until we get it right. At this early stage in life we seem to be able to take the ups and the downs of successes and failures and to keep on trying. Our emotional lives would seem to follow a similar path where we learn to trust in the reassuring presence of the other.

As adults, in relationships and in life things can happen which can effect our trust in others or in our world. A loss of a job; a serious illness or difficulties in relationships can shake our sense of confidence in our world and the people in it. This presents us with the major challenge of trying to regain trust after it has been lost. In experiencing the hurt of a loss we can withdraw into ourselves in an emotional coil which does not allow the possibility of any risk as this might result in further hurt. Our confidence in the world, in our ability to move forward in it has been locked away. When we find ourselves in this state it is often difficult to take the first step out and we can become stuck.

Our hopes, dreams and expectations have met with disappointment in the world and we have to look over these and consider them carefully in order to re-launch ourselves. Therapy can be like a parent’s hand on the saddle of the bike, holding us steady as we launch ourselves back into the world. Depending on the level of our loss of trust our early steps can be quite tentative. It is hoped that through a process like this we can learn to trust again, taking into account what we have learned from our life experience and earlier losses. Most of all this is about learning about ourselves and having trust and confidence in our ability to move confidently through the world; a bit like learning how to ride a bike.

Counselling Connections, Dundalk.

Here at Counselling Connections this week we took time out to have a long look at our waiting room. It is a very attractive room, high ceilinged with original plasterwork and a large open fireplace. We have a few nice paintings and two comfortable couches. There is a long coffee table with an eclectic mix of reading from psychoanalysis through fairy tales to the local free advertiser. We sat for a few minutes to feel what the experience was like. We realise that a waiting room can be a place of anxiety and we are trying to make ours as welcoming and comfortable as we can. Quite apart from the reading material we place there we realise that one of the first things that someone does nowadays if they have to wait is to reach for their phone.

Whether it is on a bus or a train or waiting for a food order to be brought to your table in a restaurant those few minutes of being alone can make us feel anxious. With the mobile phone being so accessible it is often the crutch that we use to fill those awkward few minutes. It provides the illusion of not being alone; it serves to help us to deny our separateness. With so much information now available we can check the latest news updates for a while or log in to a social network to see what friends have been up to. Or if we feel like we really need to reach out to another we might choose a friend and send that great contemporary conversation opener; the ‘where r u?’ text. It seems to us that this is all about relieving the anxiety of being alone.

Imagine a baby who wakes after a short nap. On waking the baby wants to re-establish human contact and will usually call out for their mother. Depending on the age of the child this may be by making a range of different noises and movements or it may be by use of the word ‘Mammy’ once they have learned this. Just say that one particular day the mother is temporarily out of earshot and does not react to the baby straight away. In this instance the baby will experience a sudden rise in anxiety levels and will worry for a moment about being abandoned forever. A few short minutes can seem like an eternity in these circumstances. Depending on the placement of the cot and the accessibility to it this may happen a lot during infancy and this baby may grow up with a slightly higher than usual level of fear when it comes to being alone.

Fast forward now by twenty years or so and the baby of our example has grown to be an adult in our twenty first century world. Among their gadgets, indeed a necessity for their job is a mobile phone. They may have the addition of a wireless Bluetooth facility to make hands free calls on the go. Imagine then that with voice recognition dialling they had the ability to make a call while driving or walking along a city street. It is very convenient to be able to get in touch with their office base in this way. We feel that this ability also serves to keep at bay their fundamental anxiety about being on their own. They may even have made allowances for the occasional personal call and programmed in their mammy’s number so that she too can be reached simply by calling her name. Just like in their childhood dreams they can experience the soothing tones of their mother’s voice in an instant.

Mobile technology and internet access have made so many things so much more accessible and straight forward. They have also helped us to keep at bay the anxieties we feel abut being alone. It is a good exercise to watch these things in our selves. Sometimes, turning off our modern devices, even the radio and just listening to silence or the ticking of a clock can be very instructive. In those quiet moments we might get in touch with some things which we fear. By considering these things and reflecting on them and on their possible origins in infancy we can understand and placate our fears. In this way we can get in touch with feelings of confidence in our selves as separate from but still in relationship with others. We can learn to feel relaxed rather than fearful when things go a little quiet and we are left alone with our thoughts.

Counselling Connections, Dundalk.

Here at Counselling Connections this week we have been talking about trauma. We are all familiar with the effects of a single, catastrophic event and we have no difficulty understanding how such a trauma can send your body into shock. This can lead to flashbacks and difficulty sleeping as well as quite strong anxiety. The event which caused the trauma looms large in our minds sometimes even after the passage of a good deal of time. This kind of trauma can be worked through in counselling and it is possible to recover well quite quickly. Sometimes when we are working through a trauma that has a single obvious cause we find traces of previous, more subtle traumas. These other kinds of trauma will have created their own difficulties and it is these that we want to talk about this week.

What we are describing are effects of trauma that have come about as a result of a series of smaller events. These can be more difficult to recall because they often lack the sudden impact of a larger traumatic event. It can also be confusing to look back on because it is one of the characteristics of these types of events that we try to play down their importance. There are often day to day events which we simply adapted our selves to. It is in these adaptations that the problem can be found. They are stories from what is often initially referred to as a normal childhood.

As children if what we have to say or how we feel is not received well, not welcomed in our environment, we will adapt. We will learn to say things and maybe even begin to learn to feel things which we know are accepted. These responses are to the ordinary day to day admonishments of parents to a child that rise in intensity to the point where they are consistently delivered too harshly. In this way we develop a false self. It is probably fair to say that we all have a false self to a greater or lesser extent. We do not say how we feel all of the time in every situation. But as a child, if our playful expression is met with a consistent harsh response we will experience these as a series of traumas and react accordingly.

We become accustomed to reacting in a way which is in keeping with the family culture. We do not consider what may be right for our own self but rather how our interaction will be received. We can grow up then without really knowing how to get in touch with our own self or even how we feel. This can leave us as adults with feelings of being detached or with difficulty in forming close relationships. It can also leave us feeling dissatisfied with life because we have learned to adapt to others without any account of what may be right for us. We then have to go about undoing the habit of a lifetime.

Again and again we see examples of a life lived under the stifling influence of an overly harsh parent. This can leave us fearful and inhibited and feeling unable to get in touch with what we would like to achieve. Indeed, it can leave us unable to consider that there might be any value in something which might come from our own self so accustomed have we become to adapting our wishes to those others. It can take some time in therapy to work through the events that led to this situation. This may be accompanied by the re-emergence of strong feelings that have been buried away for years. This process continues with beginning to find some confidence in our self and our ability to find our own way in the world. The hope is that this way will lead to a more fulfilled and contented way of being in our personal and professional lives.

Counselling Connections, Dundalk.

The birth of your baby is usually a time of celebration for you and your family. This may ring true for lots of women who have had good experiences of pregnancy and giving birth. But it is not always the case and women and babies can be left traumatised after negative birth experiences. This trauma can affect everyday living, where a mother has huge difficulty getting over her experience. The current medical model of childbirth here in Ireland seems to give out the message that if a mother and baby are healthy, one should be grateful for that. This leaves women feeling unable to speak out negatively about their experiences. However, a traumatic birth experience can affect a mothers relationship with herself, her new baby, her partner, her other children and extended family.

Giving birth is a life event. It is a very vulnerable time for you. If you have had an overwhelming traumatic experience, your body will have gone into shock, both physically and psychologically.   Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD happens when a person remains stuck in psychological shock. This can happen following traumatic birth.  You may be reliving your traumatic birth through flashbacks and nightmares, leaving you unable to reconnect in your relationships. It can be difficult for you to feel safe again as it may have felt like a life or death experience. This can leave you lacking in confidence with your ability to be a good mother to your baby. Other symptoms can include being irritable, depressed, lacking in concentration or being angry.  It is normal to feel frightened, sad and anxious following such an event. Many mothers describe a feeling of going crazy. For others there is a numbness about the whole event. There can be a deep sense of loss around one’s expectations for giving birth and how it actually turned out.

In our practice here at Counselling Connections, we have met mothers whose experiences may have been recorded medically as “normal” but the woman’s experience felt far from normal. Even a ‘natural’ birth can be experienced as traumatic. Through counselling we can help you work towards feeling safe and in control of your life again. We do this by facilitating you in processing the memories and emotions associated with your experience in a safe, confidential environment. It is only when the experience is felt and understood that it will stop hurting so much.

Here at Counselling Connections this week we’ve been talking about change. There is nothing unusual about that I suppose when you consider that change is the line of work that we are in. We were talking about the change that happens on a societal level over numbers of years. When you think of the rules that our parents, or their parents had to live with and compare them to our generation or to our kids you can see a world of difference. The question we paused to consider is ‘where does this change begin?’ It is interesting to consider how ideas which we consider normal now would have been quire foreign to our grandparents. This goes for a number of issues at a societal level covering race, gender, sexual orientation or family status. We wondered how this change comes about and also how this applies to a person changing over the course of their life.

Sometimes when a person is in therapy and looking at their life as it is at the time an idea will present itself. This idea could relate to their relationship; to their job or maybe it could be something to do with college. It could even be about going to college as a mature student and beginning to train in something completely new. Often these things are expressed and immediately discarded as being impossible to achieve. It is not unusual to sit with a person who is in an unhappy relationship but who finds the idea of separation too difficult to contemplate. In our experience a person’s heart makes the decision for them at an early stage but it can take some time for this change of heart to be reflected in the world. This is an important clue as to how we bring about change.

Another example could be a person who has become unhappy in their job but for whom the prospect of change is too scary for the moment. Often we find that the fear of change here can relate to the apparent security of their current income and a consequent appearance of a lack of security if they were to go with their imagination, take a risk and follow a career path that would be more satisfying but maybe not have the guarantee of a monthly salary. The first time a change is considered it is often quickly dismissed as being impossible. But slowly; and there is plenty of time in therapy for ideas to grow, various ideas of what the future might be can be played with. With time, as with many other things; an idea that once seemed preposterous or an impossible dream can slowly become more concrete. Then with a little determination and an amount of hard work changes can be brought about.

So, the key thing seems to be that in the first instant you just need the idea; the use of a little imagination. It seems then that a number of objections will almost automatically raise themselves. In therapy these objections can be considered one by one. Often this involves revealing their origins which may be in a relationship either with a parent, or a teacher or even just because of the prevailing norms we grew up with. The interesting thing here is that it is actually our own self, not another who dismisses the possibilities open to us. Over the years we have internalised what was originally an external opposition and made it our own. Change begins then when we can sit with an idea and watch our internal objections to it and having got to know our own self a little better, to politely disregard these objections. We are freer then to choose; we are freer to consider new things; things which we may have previously regarded as being impossible for us to achieve.

Counselling Connections, Dundalk.

Here at Counselling Connections this week we took a few minutes to sit and talk about different kinds of depression. Some people who are diagnosed with depression are told they have a chemical imbalance which is causing them to feel unwell. We’ll talk about that kind of depression another time. What we’re interested in discussing with you this week is a kind of depression which is actually quite hard to define. In simple terms it is a collection of feelings which are experienced over a period of time and which relate to a general dissatisfaction with the turn that life has taken. There’s a kind of self help phrase going around at the moment which says ‘depression is not a sign of weakness; it’s a sign you’ve been trying to be too strong for too long’. This is the kind of depression we’re talking about.

One of the difficulties about coming to therapy for the first time is being able to say why you’ve decided to come. It can be hard to say what’s wrong. It is not necessarily that its too upsetting to talk about it; although that is sometimes the case, its just that the feelings are a low level flattening off of your normal zest for life and its hard to know where to begin describing it. This is where counselling and psychotherapy come into their own because we are not concerned with a diagnosis or with placing your feelings or symptoms into a particular category. Rather, our first concern is to hear from you what way you are feeling and how this is affecting your life.

In the initial stages of therapy the focus can be on what your current difficulties are. These are normal everyday things like getting up for work; financial problems and managing relationships with loved ones, partners, parents and others. Sometimes we find that how we are feeling begins to affect these different relationships in similar ways. This can lead to a feeling that ‘there is something wrong with me’ and this can shake our confidence a little further. It is not uncommon for someone who begins to feel this way to subtly withdraw from their primary relationships. This strategy is about avoiding feeling hurt or experiencing judgement from others. Loved ones can pick up on our frailty and try to protect us by keeping details of ongoing domestic issues from us. All these serve to increase the sense of isolation we have begun to experience.

This is a painful phase to endure and getting back a sense of positivity or optimism seems like a daunting, if not impossible task. Although it is not generally looked at this way at the time, it also presents an opportunity to reorder our priorities and re-assess the direction our lives have taken. It can lead to a process of dreaming it all up and beginning again. This is not something that can be achieved overnight but over the course of a therapy new horizons can be considered and played with. We can spend some time looking at what fears or roadblocks exist within us which have served to stifle our creativity over the years. We can look back at previous experiences; at times when we suffered setbacks and see what adjustments these caused us to make in our unwritten plans. These adjustments to difficulties can be similar to the withdrawing from loved ones at times of distress. Initially we do these things to protect ourselves but in the longer term they may serve to stop us from attaining even modest goals.

I suppose we at Counselling Connections have a slightly different view of this kind of depression. We would see it as part of a natural process that we all go through on an ongoing basis in life. We assess where we are; we see things we’d like; or we imagine a way we’d like to be and we aim for that. We probably do this on an ongoing basis through life without really realising we are doing it. The times we are talking about this week are those times when this process doesn’t work or where we get stuck at some point in it. This can be because in the ‘assessment’ phase of the process in our minds we might see where life has taken us and realise that we’re not happy to be here. This is painful; it can lead to loss of interest in life and a temptation to give up. It can also be regarded as an opportunity. To engage the services of a specialist in this kind of thing, a counsellor or a psychotherapist can lead to a process of getting to know your own self and your own processes to the extent that you are much more in command of them. In this way we can learn to leave behind states of getting stuck or of withdrawing from life and learn ways to feel content and accomplished and quietly confident in ourselves and our position in the world.

Counselling Connections, Dundalk.

Here at Counselling Connections this week one of our partners was away at an important business meeting and her return to the office was anxiously awaited. When she got back we sat down in the kitchen to catch up. ‘I’ve been really anxious to know how you got on’ I said. ‘Yes’, she replied; then paused and said ‘I wonder if this is how clients and their partners feel after a therapy session’. News of the business meeting would have to wait while we teased this out and spoke of our clients’ experiences of this phenomenon, the experience of being debriefed.

It is not unusual for a partner of a client to be waiting anxiously for their return from a counselling session and to expect to hear in great detail what had transpired. There are many questions about what the therapist is like, what they said and what did they expect you to talk about. And what did you talk about? The discourse in therapy is different to ordinary social interaction; it is so much more about being listened to than an everyday social exchange. It takes a little getting used to; it is new. A loved one will have an interest in hearing about how you begin to deal with the issues which caused you to begin the therapy in the first place. As we discussed this we realised that there was a range of different feelings associated with this therapy ‘debriefing’ and they’re not all positive.

From time to time in therapy the facing of a ‘debriefing’ from a partner on returning home can cause a real difficulty. You have to feel able to say anything that comes to mind in your therapy. It works best when you feel free to speak of your worst fears and traumas, of strong feelings, of love and hate, of jealousy, of rage, of loss and regret, of dreams, disappointments; anything and everything really. It is harder to speak freely of these things without censor if you feel you have to report on them afterwards.

Additionally, something of the power of the feelings in therapy can be lost; diluted maybe when they are repeated outside of the therapy room. Your partner may feel threatened if you don’t tell them about these things but working through them may have to be done without your partner’s active involvement. This may leave them feeling left out, or even that they are not being heard themselves.

Sometimes a relationship is not good or supportive and the partner can make hurtful remarks or insinuations about the therapy. The therapy itself can become a safe sanctuary for these feelings. At other times a loved one may feel a little threatened or envious of the therapy. They may wonder that a stranger, the therapist, is hearing intimate details of their loved one’s life, things that they may not know of themselves. After a while in therapy, noticing changes in their loved one may also evoke some feelings of anxiety. A partner who starts to become more self reliant or who no longer reacts to things in the same old ways causes an adjustment in a relationship. When thing are going well this is a wonderful process; but it still means a change for the partner.

At times therapy can mean trawling over details of very upsetting things from the past. This can create special challenges for loved ones. Sometimes it is really comforting, having revealed something distressing in therapy, to have the love and support of a friend or family member who may know a little but not a lot of what is going on but who makes it clear to you that they are there to support you as you go about your difficult journey. This represents a change in the nature of ‘debriefing’ where your loved one understands that you are working through some difficult things; doesn’t enquire as to the details but remains steadfast in their support. This is a wonderful addition to the work of the therapy.

There is so much more that we could say about this. Reading back over what we’ve just written we realise that this is addressed to the loved one as much as it is to a client. I suppose that is appropriate. At times a client will have little support outside their therapy. At other times their partner will feel threatened by the whole process. Sometimes the important people in your life will try to undermine your therapy, for a range of reasons, some benign and some less so. In any event all these things can be talked about in therapy as you negotiate the changes in your life and your relationships. It is primarily a personal process, about your self and your choosing the best ways to proceed in love and in life.

Counselling Connections, Dundalk.

We awoke on Friday last 11th March to the news of a nine magnitude earthquake in Japan and a subsequent tsunami that caused great devastation and loss of life. The scenes of cars and houses being swept away by the waves were almost unbelievable. It happened in the afternoon when children were still in school and workers in offices, just getting on with everyday life. One wonders what the problems each was facing that morning before disaster struck and how this dissolved into oblivion with what followed.
As many of you have said, it brings to light our vulnerability as a human race. In the face of natural disasters, we are unprepared, despite our best efforts. Japan has apparently some of the best protective procedures in place with respect to earthquakes and tsunami warnings. These manmade efforts were in vain last Friday. The knock on effect of the damaged nuclear plants and the pending meltdown now adds to the magnitude of the problem. We can barely take it in.
World disasters like this prompt us to lift our heads and look towards what other people have to face in countries where natural disasters are more common than here in Ireland. There is often a mix of relief and guilt that we don’t have to face what other countries do. Human nature sees us fascinated for a while with sky news on continuously, followed by a retreat to one’s own life as the days go on. There have been numerous world disasters over the past few years, one seeming to be followed by another. We’ve been asking ourselves here, what is it in human nature that prompts us to eventually dissociate from the realities of what others go through, when we have been shocked and upset by it initially?…
When we face traumatic situations in our own lives, to help us to continue on living we ‘split off’ or disconnect from the feelings associated with the event. In counselling terms we refer to this as dissociation. Often the person reports feeling as if they had left their body and were looking on at the event. This is an inherent defence mechanism which allows us to keep functioning and helps us to get through. It works temporarily. If we were to feel the feelings at the time, we fear we may be overwhelmed. However, these feelings are still inside and will need to be dealt with at some point. Counselling seeks encourage the client to feel in relation to traumatic events, a little at a time.
Take Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after a car accident. The person may be dealing with other people involved in the accident, physical injuries, being grateful that all are still alive. But over the coming weeks and months the person may experience feeling down, crying, insomnia, worry and stress. This is the person coming to terms with the actuality of the accident, of what they felt and witnessed at the time. The body and mind need time to work through and adjust to what it has experienced. We also see this at play with adults who have been traumatised as children. It’s as if they can only afford to deal with it now as adults, that it may not have been ‘safe’ to feel the feelings before now.
So when we look at the tragedy and the trauma Japanese people are suffering, of course we feel sympathetic but in order to keep going in our own lives, we disconnect at some level from the enormity of what it must be like to be there. To allay our guilt in doing this, we look to contribute financially to a recovery fund. When we are faced then with stories from individual families or people in crisis, it evokes an empathic response in us because we can now identify with them as being like ourselves. Like with the four month old little baby who was found alive, we find ourselves drawn into the real life situations and wonder did the baby’s mother survive. But these feelings in us are temporary. We close them off when we close the newspaper or turn off the TV and we get on with what we have to do. It is human nature, not because we just don’t care. Were the countries reversed, Japanese people would be having the same reaction as we are. No doubt there are thousands of traumatised people who are trying to recover the basics of their lives food, shelter and clothing. It is only over the coming months that the reality of the devastation will impact psychologically on the victims.