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How to Stay Sane if Trump is Driving You Insane: Advice From a Therapist
Last edited Fri May 5, 2017, 07:54 PM - Edit history (1)
“I feel like I’ve lost faith in humanity, in our country, in myself,” a client told me recently. “Is this depression, or is this the election?”
“Good question,” I replied. The truth is, individual psychology is hugely influenced by political realities. Many of us feel insane right now because our world is not sane. Current events are very much at odds with our natural optimism, and our belief in human goodness and progress.
What made us so optimistic in the first place? Our nation was founded on idealistic, positive principles: human worth and dignity, the inevitability of progress, and the goodness of the human collective. Alex de Tocqueville in the early 19th century described Americans’ remarkable optimism with interest. As an article in the Atlantic described in 2015, Americans have maintained our unusually sunny outlook even through our darkest hours. If we have a national ideology, it could be encapsulated in Obama’s farewell address, with the assertion, “I truly believe we are going to be okay.”
From such elevated hope has come a long, hard fall. We find ourselves in a darkening political climate in which corruption, hatred, exclusion, and paranoia are prominent. Many are experiencing despair and anxiety like never before, judging by the increase in calls to suicide and crisis hotlines, and anecdotal reports from therapists. A national trauma, just like a personal one, is as disorienting as it is terrifying. It makes us question everything we thought we knew. Two questions must be answered in order to heal:
How can we integrate this crisis into our understanding of the world?
What do we do now?
“Good question,” I replied. The truth is, individual psychology is hugely influenced by political realities. Many of us feel insane right now because our world is not sane. Current events are very much at odds with our natural optimism, and our belief in human goodness and progress.
What made us so optimistic in the first place? Our nation was founded on idealistic, positive principles: human worth and dignity, the inevitability of progress, and the goodness of the human collective. Alex de Tocqueville in the early 19th century described Americans’ remarkable optimism with interest. As an article in the Atlantic described in 2015, Americans have maintained our unusually sunny outlook even through our darkest hours. If we have a national ideology, it could be encapsulated in Obama’s farewell address, with the assertion, “I truly believe we are going to be okay.”
From such elevated hope has come a long, hard fall. We find ourselves in a darkening political climate in which corruption, hatred, exclusion, and paranoia are prominent. Many are experiencing despair and anxiety like never before, judging by the increase in calls to suicide and crisis hotlines, and anecdotal reports from therapists. A national trauma, just like a personal one, is as disorienting as it is terrifying. It makes us question everything we thought we knew. Two questions must be answered in order to heal:
How can we integrate this crisis into our understanding of the world?
What do we do now?
[link:https://medium.com/@robin.chancer/how-to-stay-sane-if-trump-is-driving-you-insane-advice-from-a-therapist-42e982195e22|
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