The Day After
Half of the population’s favored candidate didn’t win. Today and for the next several months, half of our country is going to be reeling from the election results and the potential aftermath of the election may promote feelings of fear, confusion, disappointment, grief, helplessness, anxiety, anger, guilt and even diminished confidence in oneself or others.
International disaster experts and researchers have noted that Psychological First Aid (PFA) can help alleviate painful emotions and reduce further harm from initial reactions to disasters. The Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress published a number of tools years ago which help individuals recover in times of loss.
In order to help reduce distress for our broader society, we have modified these tools for the present circumstances.
Everyone can use PFA to help. Your actions and interactions with others can help provide PFA to people in distress, by creating and sustaining an environment of (1) safety, (2) calmness, (3) connectedness to others, (4) self-efficacy—or empowerment, and (5) hopefulness.
Consider the following suggestions:
Be helpful:
-
Encourage Safe ways to express emotions: Listen to people who want to share their stories and emotions;
-
Be calming, remember, that there is no wrong or right way to feel.
-
Be calming and friendly and compassionate even if people are being difficult
-
Do promote Connectedness: provide accurate information about the circumstances.
-
Encourage Connectedness: Help people contact friends or loved ones
-
Promote self-efficacy by giving practical suggestions that encourage people towards helping themselves and meeting their own needs
The experts discourage the following things which have been found to be unhelpful:
-
Forcing people to share their stories with you, may decrease calming; listen if they talk but don’t press the issue if they don’t want to talk.
-
Giving simple reassurances like “everything will be ok” often diminishes calmness and can anger others
-
Telling people what you think they should be feeling, thinking or doing now or how they should have acted earlier decreases self-efficacy, and is not recommended.
-
Telling people why you think things happened by giving reasons about their personal behaviors or beliefs also decreases self-efficacy as is not recommended.
-
Making promises that may not be kept decreases hope and is unwise.
-
Criticizing existing services diminishes hope and calming in our governmental system. We live in a democracy, with a constitution that has ideals and this allows for others to have differing but respected opinions.
In order for the people of our country to survive the results of this divisive election, we all have to work together.
At the NeuroScience & TMS Treatment Center, we have several treatment options we can use, beyond common medications and therapy, to aggressively treat you for brain diseases. Learn more about our treatments and services on our Comprehensive Behavioral Health Page.
Blog Post Authors
Michelle Cochran, MD, DFAPA
Founder & Chief Medical Officer • Medical Director, Nashville Locations
Dr. Cochran has been living and working in the Nashville area for over 25 years. She supervises the skilled Nurse Practitioners who work in our clinics. She has been offering TMS services since 2011 and lectures and consults nationally and internationally about TMS. She is Board Certified and is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. Learn more about Dr. Cochran.
Jonathan Becker, DO
Medical Director, Brentwood Locations
Dr. Becker is a native of Tennessee, born in Memphis. He completed his undergraduate and master’s degrees in Developmental Psychology at Tulane University in New Orleans before attending Des Moines University for Medical School. He completed his psychiatry residency program at Vanderbilt University and served as a faculty member there for 7 years before transitioning to our office. While at Vanderbilt, Dr. Becker served as the medical director of the neuromodulation service from 2017-2020. Dr. Becker has also published many psychiatric articles. Learn more about Dr. Becker.