In this space, I will write reflections on various topics related to mental health and wellness. I cannot promise the blog will have regular entries...it could be weekly, or monthly, or...It is simply meant to be a space to capture little tidbits of information and inspiration I hope you will find helpful. Enjoy!

November 5, 2024

I wrote this for my college students, the day after the presidential election. It is not meant to be a "slam" against anyone's political affiliation; this article was written to provide solace to students for whom the election results had affected negatively. At the college at which I teach, that happened to be the majority of students in my classes. I post it here in the event it might be helpful and also as an example of how grief affects our lives in many ways, not just related to death.

Post-election Angst-A Grief Perspective 

By Sara Bartlett, DSW, LCSW 

Judging by the bright blue that enshrouded California on the electoral maps last night, it is likely many of you are feeling disappointed by the election results this morning, particularly that of president. I would like to suggest that what some might be feeling is actually grief. Grief is the normal internal reaction we experience to any type of loss. And loss is not just associated with death—a loss is a severing of an attachment we have with another person, a loved object or an aspect of our self and identity (Whitbourne, S.B., & Whitbourne, S.K., 2019). Our identity as Americans, whatever that means to us, is a big part of who we are, even if we don’t acknowledge it on the daily. Many I’ve spoken with have said that the negativity they feel over Trump’s election is not just about Trump, but rather the realization that one lives in a nation that will choose a candidate with the values Trump holds, which to many seem unethical and cruel. 

Famous grief researcher Kenneth Doka once said that disenfranchised grief is any grief that is not legitimized by society (Doka, 2002). Let us first acknowledge that we are allowed to feel grief over the outcome of this presidential election. Those who are grieving have suffered a loss of attachment to the part of their identity that thinks of America as a place of love and kindness, of hope and possibility, of positivity and compromise. This grief is real! 

Of all the grief theorists out there, Elizabeth Kübler-Ross is probably one of the most wellknown, particularly for her five stages of dying which were eventually morphed into five stages of grief (Kübler Ross, 1970). While we no longer ascribe a particular order to the stages of grief or grieving, they remain a helpful way to categorize the powerful feelings that come during this process. I will list them in order, with examples of how they might apply to election grief, but please know they can happen in any order. 

Denial: You may be waking up this morning in shock. You went to bed before the race had officially been called. It wasn’t looking good for Harris, but when you woke up this morning, hesitantly you turned on your phone, and there was the push notification. You may have heaved a heavy sigh, maybe even blinked back a tear or two, and then went on about your morning. There are kids to feed, dogs to walk, a job to prepare for. The powerful emotions get stuffed deep into a box, only to possibly be reopened later at a more convenient time...if that time ever comes. Take time to attend to your grief, even just ten minutes of sitting on a park bench or crying in the shower can go a long way toward ventilating negative feelings so they don’t become unmanageable later on. 

Anger: So much to be angry about, right? For some, this might be the most prominent emotion. Anger is just as much a part of grief as sadness. You may feel angry at the candidates, their campaign managers, the Americans who voted for them, your neighbor with the Trump sign out front. Anger is healthy in that it is a power emotion and can motivate one to action, but be careful it doesn’t overwhelm you and lead to you altering your behaviors in a way that doesn’t align with your values... 

Bargaining: If only I had joined a phone bank, volunteered for the Democratic party, been more outspoken about my beliefs...the list goes on and on. Bargaining allows us to indulge in the “what ifs”. This type of imaginative rhetoric is another outlet for expressing our grief and isn’t wrong, however, we must remain grounded in the reality of the present. We can’t go back. 

Depression: Most think of grief as synonymous with sadness. Feeling depressed is a common emotional reaction as well. Depressive symptoms go beyond just sadness. They include hopelessness-maybe you feel like America will never be the same again or have lost hope in the American people who voted this outcome into effect. It is easy to create a dangerous snowball, in which the sadness and hopelessness you feel regarding the loss (in this case the election results) spills over into other areas of your life. Suddenly you are feeling sad about anything and everything else that has and could go wrong in your life. Talk to someone you trust who will help you compartmentalize your depression over the election results. Yes, this part of life stinks right now, but that doesn’t mean the rest of your life is going down the tube! 

Acceptance: There is a commonly used metaphor in grief counseling that living with grief is like carrying it in a heavy backpack on a hike. At first the grief is so heavy, it weighs you down. You can barely function, it is hard to move forward. Over time, the grief in the backpack doesn’t necessarily become lighter; however, your body becomes stronger and more able to withstand it. You are able to carry it with you on your journey. It’s always there, but you deal with it differently because you have changed. Once the grief is easier to carry, you can start to look around. You aren’t as focused only on the grief. You start to see the flowers, the mountains, the birds and other beautiful things along your hike. The same is true for grief over losses in our life. We don’t “get over it” and it rarely completely disappears; we carry it with us forever. However, we become stronger in bearing it and we eventually start to look up—to see the grief but also to see past it.  

I am hopeful the same will happen post-election. Yes, you will be sad, mad, disappointed and afraid for a while. But before long, you will notice the sunset again. You will observe little acts of kindness that remind us who Americans really are and can be—a child giving an unhoused person a dollar, one student lending another a laptop charger, a stranger letting you merge in during traffic. The signs are there. They always were and they always will be. We just have to search more deeply for them. 

Sources:  

Doka, K. (2002). Disenfranchised grief: Recognizing human sorrow. Lexington Books. 

Kübler-Ross, E. (1970). On death and dying. Simon and Schuster. 

November 29, 2024

While most of my clinical work centers around older adults and their caregivers, as I personally go through many of the milestones of middle adulthood, I'm finding myself reflecting on that part of the life cycle as well. Here, I offer some words of encouragement for all those parents of college bound teenagers during this college application season.

Emotional Contagion

By Sara Bartlett, DSW, LCSW

I sit there biting my nails, a habit I had previously successfully given up, but had recently returned to. My 17 year-old sits next to me, leaned forward slightly, focusing on the computer. “Should I hit submit?” he asks me tentatively, turning to me with a tense look on his face. We look at each other and I can only focus on his deep blue eyes, the “angel dust” (ie. freckles) sprinkled across the bridge of his nose. He also has facial hair starting to grow back in after a recent shave, but I don’t see that. I only see him as my child, whose blue eyes and freckles I’ve been staring at for years, one of the many gateways to the love I feel for him that cannot be adequately explained in words.

“Yes?” I answer, without the definitiveness probably needed from a parent at this moment. He hesitates.

We have had many such moments the last few months. My high achieving, extremely academic middle born is shooting for the moon. LOTS of college applications and all that comes with that–essay after essay, complicated forms, alumni interviews, resumes, internet research, campus tours, college fairs…The business of this time, coupled with the underlying emotion inherent in every step of the process is a lot for him, I’m not going to lie. There’s been a few “breakdowns” but his youthful resiliency sorts those out quickly and he’s back up and running.  Me however? That’s a different story!

Emotional contagion happens when emotions spread between people, often without them even realizing it. It was a term first coined by psychologist Elaine Hatfield and colleagues in her 1994 book, Emotional Contagion: Studies in Emotion and Social Interaction. You might have learned once upon a time in an intro Psychology class about mirror neurons-for example when a newborn in a hospital nursery hears another baby cry, the other newborn starts crying too. Is this nature’s way of instilling in us a sense of empathy long before we realize it? 

Emotional contagion can take many forms. The first is mimicking. We see this when someone reflects back the same physiological or behavioral aspects of someone else. As in the previous example, a baby may cry when another baby cries. Alternatively, you may smile or laugh when you see another person do so. I’ve had many a wonderful experience of gleeful giggle fests when a friend starts laughing at something and suddenly I am too. The point is that you “catch” the emotional expression of someone else.

Another form of emotional contagion is through observation. When someone observes another’s emotional reaction, they then have the same reaction. I have had this countless times as a helping professional. For example, my client starts crying and I tear up too. It even happens to me at random times in public. If I see someone else crying in church for example, suddenly I’m dabbing at my tears-their sadness makes me sad. I’ve always thought of this as one of the pinnacles of the empath! It can also happen the opposite way. For example, if I’m feeling nervous about something, but I observe someone in the same situation appearing calm and unbothered, I may soon adopt their carefree demeanor.

The third form of emotional contagion I want to discuss is affective synchrony. This occurs when two individual’s emotions align, not only in form, but also in timing. It is generally thought of as a positive, as it shows mutual connection between two people’s emotional states. I think this is what is going on with my teenager and I. My deep love for him and the synchronicity which we’ve always shared has aligned our emotional states in a sort of parallel universe. I don’t need to see his reactions or even hear it in his voice; I think I can actually sense his emotions! I think of it as similar to when a “feeling” hangs over a room, whether that is jubilance at a holiday party or sadness at a funeral. You can’t really put a finger on it, it’s just a feeling. That’s my sense of affective synchrony. This child and I have always had a special connection and affective synchrony is part of that.

So what does that mean for my life these days? STRESS! Hence the return of the nail biting-it is a stressful time for my son and I am taking on all of that stress along with him. It’s not my future hanging on the other side of the “submit” button. Let’s be real, it’s not really his future either. Whatever college he winds up at, he will be fine. His aptitude for success is within and not defined by which college he gets into or attends. But his happiness is my happiness, his disappointment my disappointment. I want what he wants and therefore our emotions continue to intertwine in a very tense dance. 

What do we do about emotional contagion? First of all, I want to point out that it's not necessarily always a bad thing! Empathy is a vital part of our world that often sustains humanity! Helping professionals exude it and most parents as well. It helps our world be more connected. However, if emotional contagion is leading to interference in one’s own life (ie. sleepless nights, distraction from work, strained relationships,etc.), then it may be something to pay attention to.

The mental health website VeryWell Mind summarizes several useful strategies for avoiding emotional contagion. I will share them here, as I am attempting to integrate these into my own mental health as my child and I navigate this difficult time. 

1. Awareness: If I notice myself biting my nails or feeling tense, I take the time to ask myself, “why am I feeling this way?” A follow up question is, “Is this something happening in my own life or in the life of another person?” Once I realize the emotion is not linked to something directly in my own life, it can help to put a little distance between the event and the emotion I’m feeling.

2. Breathe: Mindful breathing is a strategy I often suggest to clients, regardless of the situation. My favorite is “restorative breathing”. Breathe in through your nose to the count of 3, hold your breath for 5 seconds, and breathe out through your mouth to the count of 7 while at the same time, repeating a positive self-statement to yourself (ie. “everything’s going to be okay; I am doing well; I can handle this,” etc.)

3. Compassion: I remind myself that successfully engaging in empathy means taking on the other person’s emotion only to the point of being able to support them, but not to allow their emotions to overwhelm mine. I’ve often told counseling interns that to avoid burnout, we need to “borrow” someone else’s pain but not “own” it. The same is true for my interactions with my child. Also, much like a therapeutic relationship, he is looking at me as the one with more experience and knowledge in order to help him. If I become so bogged down in my own feelings, it will be hard for me to remain steadfast in my support of him. After all, this is about him, not me. I need to be there for him as the parent. Modeling how to handle stress is also important, but I don’t have to be perfect. Teaching through my own mistakes is valuable too! He caught me biting my nails once as we were pouring over a college application. That was a teachable moment–”Darn! I’m at it again. This is not worth biting my nails is it? I’m going to take a quick lap around the house and come back.”

4. Coping: I need to remember that I know what works best for me to cope with negative emotions. I’ve had many years to figure that out. For me, that is going for a brisk walk, being in nature, journaling, or listening to my curated playlists (I have one for when I’m feeling angry, one for when I want to feel happy, an inspirational playlist, even one that reminds me of my kids).

Above all else, it’s important to remember that “this too shall pass”. Just like situations come and go, so do emotions. Learning to tolerate them and avoid the overgeneralization that “I’ll always feel this way” is important. Going through an emotional time with someone you love, even if unpleasant in the present, is often something you will look back on someday with contemplative fondness–it bonded you, solidified your support for one another and may even have brought you closer.

He hits “submit”. A pop up states “Are you sure?” We look at each other and smile. He hits “yes” and in synchronicity, we breathe a sigh of relief.

Sources:

Fleming, L. (2023). Emotional contagion: Can emotions really be infectious? VeryWell Mind. https://www.verywellmind.com/emotional-contagion-the-psychology-of-shared-emotions-8402628

Hatfield, E., Cacioppo, J. T., & Rapson, R. L. (1994). Emotional contagion: Studies in emotion and social interaction. Editions de la Maison des Sciences de L’homme.

Herrando, C. & Constantinides, E. (2021). Emotional contagion: A brief overview and future directions. Frontiers in Psychology, 12:712606. https://doi.org/ 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.712606