“Just like there’s always time for pain, there’s always time for healing.”
– Jennifer Brown
Almost every day, we come across news of murder, assault, rape, and thievery, whether it is in the newspaper, on news channels or through various online media websites. The sensational reporting of these events and their inherent traumatic nature tend to leave a mark on our psyche. All of us react to it in different ways; we feel helpless, we feel anger, anxiety, sadness and sometimes, indifference.
Some of us seem to cope with these news reports, some of us find it difficult to assimilate it and some of us feel violated by the very thought of it. During a recent discussion at a team meeting at Inner Space, we realized that the psychological effects of these news reports can be very stressful and traumatic for people. We wanted to help you understand why there is a sense of vulnerability that has now crept into our system. Negative events tend to prey on our pre-existing fears and make us question our safety. Even though we tend to develop defenses to deal with this, some of our defenses can be unhealthy and emotionally exhausting. It then becomes important to work with the unpleasant thoughts and emotions that we go through in the aftermath of these news reports.
In a separate article, we have hoped to explain in detail the psychological effects of traumatic news and how we can build healthy coping strategies to deal with these effects. Click on the link below to read the entire article:
COPING WITH PSYCHOLOGICAL AFFECTS OF TRAUMATIC NEWS
Feel free to share your opinions and perspective on how traumatic news reports affect you and the people around you. Also, let us know about any coping mechanisms that you have found useful. You can send in any feedback or questions that you might have.
Image Credit: John Ragai
Post contributed by: Anusha Manjani
Anusha is a Psychologist (M.A. Clinical Psychology) and she worked with children and adolescents and young adults at Inner Space, from 2013 to 2015.
