We woke up to the news that fifty people died in a horrible plane crash last night. Grief grips my community here in Western New York. Nothing can come close to describing what anyone who lost a loved one so suddenly feels. My deepest sympathies …
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Thanks for this article. I turned on the TV just before going to bed last night and CNN was reporting this. I think it was Anderson Cooper who was on the phone (On Air) trying to get confirmation of what was happening. The video that they showed was a house on fire with small airplane parts sticking out here and there.
I just kept thinking about how uncertain life can be and the suddeness of all this. I just find it to be very scary.
Todays (2-14) NY Times has a nice article regarding background of the passengers of the ill-fated flight. Its amazing how such a random group of 50 persons can be so talented (law students, artists, musicians) and how fragile and transient life can be. Very sad.
Steve and Dr. Gomez:
Last night there were services at the neighborhood temple for the cantor who died on the plane. She sang at the bar and bat mitzahs of many family friends. This morning my son told me his friend’s father died in the crash. The tragedy is very close and, yes, it makes us acutely aware of our vulnerability. Hopefully we’ll be inspired celebrate our lives rather than succumb to the anxiety of loosing it.
Great advice! I’m both an airline captain and a licensed therapist specializing in the treatment of fear of flying. I sent out a newsletter advising my clients – as you did – to shut out the media.
I asked them to do this to avoid what some therapists term “psychic equivalence”, which is when what one has in mind becomes, uncritically, experienced as reality.
This is what happens to people who panic on a flight. They imagine the plane is plunging and that becomes their reality, even though the plane is just in ordinary turbulence.
Similarly, people can “just know” if they get on the plane it will crash. This is also psychic equivalence.
How does psychic equivalence develop? When you first imagine something going wrong on a flight, you know you are engaging in imagination of that. But if you continue imagining that same thing, at some point, you memorize it.
That makes things different. When something is stored in memory, the distinction between something that really happened and something imagined is lost. Once that distinction is lost, when it comes to mind, it carries the authority and the weight of reality.
This is why it is important to NOT engage in imagination – at least not repeatedly – of an air disaster, even one that took place, because it will lodge in your mind as memory and then have power to cause trouble.
When exposed to an event by the media, imagination is used to create a conceptualization of what the media describes. Even though the event happened, what we do is create a conceptualization in our “mind’s eye” which can be confused with reality.
It will NOT be accurate. And, I’ve found that in most cases, what an anxious person does it create a mental version that is far worse than the actual experience, even for the victims of the crash.
The most seriously traumatized people I worked with after 9/11 were not people who were in the buildings, but people who viewed it on TV and imagined what it was like for people in the buildings!!
Amazing, but that is how people are traumatized; they their own imagination which is – without realizing it – turned into reality which is NOT reality.
For more on this, I have a free library of articles at http://www.fearofflying.com/wordpress/
Please feel free to email if you have questions: tom@fearofflying.com
Though something you KNOW is imagination will not worry you a great
deal, when imagination memorized, what comes to mind does cause trouble.
I really appreciate your suggestions. I agree we are flooded by news, usually traumatic in nature and turning off the source and taking care of ourselves is the best thing we can do. I want to share my sympathy for your son and his friend and family. How sad. Thanks for sharing your well thought though advice.
You make a good point about the media bombardment that we live in nowadays — cable news channels in particular love to engage in speculation and dwell on traumatic news, which probably contributes to what Capt. Bunn warns against. It’s just too much information about things we can’t do anything about. I will definitely take your suggestions — giving blood, fighting anxious thoughts, and Capt. Bunn’s suggestion to not engage my imagination — to heart. I know a few people who could benefit from passing this information on.
Thanks much!
Dear Capt. Bunn,
Thank you so much for your contribution to this article. Your description of ‘psychic equivalence’ and how it can spur traumatizing thoughts and feelings explains very well why overexposure to the media is harmful. In addition you say clearly why negative thoughts in the form of imagining worst case scenarios can be lodged in memory until we can’t tell where fiction ends and reality begins.
In my practice I often suggest ‘visualization’ as a tool to reinforce positive thoughts, feelings and behavior. As I’m sure you’re familiar, it’s used in the treatment of anxiety to help overcome the effects of panic attacks. Psychic Equivalence sounds like visualization’s dark, evil twin.
Many readers of this post have let me know they are grateful for your reassuring words. Thanks again.
Dr. Aletta
Hi, Dr. Aletta–
I found your piece very helpful. I grew up in Batavia, N.Y., just a few miles down the road from Clarence. I still feel a deep connection to the people and places of my childhood, and this tragedy almost literally “hit home”, as the plane seems to have flown over parts of Genesee County. I have a blog of a somewhat different nature on the Psych Central website. Thanks again for your constructive ideas. –Best, Ron Pies MD
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2009/02/16/having-problems-means-being-alive/