News

Psychological Effects of Recent Violent Events

May 19, 2022

Social media and news coverage of shootings, bombings, and other events has been graphic and intense. In general, experiencing violence can result in serious psychological distress, including depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). While people may not develop a psychological disorder after hearing first-hand accounts or viewing graphic, real-time images of these events, people do experience strong emotions, such as fear, sadness, grief, and anger.

The more similar one is to the person or people experiencing an event, the more likely it is that the person indirectly-involved will develop a strong reaction. When crimes are reported in news coverage or shared through the immediacy of social media, many groups of people see someone with whom they identify experiencing a violent act. The more a person is reminded of years of discrimination, bias, or prejudice, the more likely it is that there will be significant stress or distress. “That could be me” turns into “That is me!”

Studying the indirect effects of violence, in general, is a relatively new endeavor. Even fewer studies focus on the unique effects of racially-motivated violence or hate crimes on psychological distress. Monnica Williams, PhD, a clinical psychologist and the director of the Center for Mental Health Disparities at the University of Connecticut, described race-based stress reactions in an interview with the New York Times in June 2015. She stated that race-based stress is, “a natural byproduct of the types of experiences that minorities have to deal with on a regular basis.” She went on to describe the prevailing symptoms that may be experienced as “depression, intrusion (the inability to get the thoughts about what happened out of one’s mind), vigilance (an inability to sleep out of fear of danger), anger, loss of appetite, apathy, avoidance symptoms, and emotional numbing.” These symptoms are quite similar to symptoms of PTSD. Even if the reported violence has never been directly-experienced, a person may have heard stories about or know people within their families or communities who have. Dr. Williams refers to this as “cultural knowledge” and notes that it primes people from minority groups to experience a unique kind of reaction and possible, secondary PTSD.

It is much more common, however, for people to have feelings of sadness, worry, fear, or anger in the aftermath of violence, be it racially motivated or otherwise. These normal reactions and feelings are to be expected, and they are not a sign of some sort of pathology or mental illness. Dealing with the emotional toll of seeing and hearing information about race-based violence or hate crimes can be overwhelming and exhausting. It is important to be aware of varied coping skills and avenues for support in order to prevent normal stress reactions from becoming potential psychological disorders.

Building a Bridge for Mental Health

May 18, 2022

For many people in Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities who have immigrated to the United States, mental health is an unfamiliar topic. But for AAPIs growing up in America, mental health can be an important part of their overall well-being. “There’s a huge difference between the older and younger generations,” says Kavitha Goldowitz, a mental health professional in Portland who has seen patients from across the diaspora with a specific focus on South Asians. “Mental health is so much less stigmatized with the younger generation.”

There are many cultural and systemic reasons for this intergenerational gap. Crossing miles of land and ocean, immigrants are faced with the task of leaving one set of cultural values for another. Many AAPIs come from societies emphasizing collectivism, where the well-being of the group is prioritized over the individual. People may avoid conflict or special attention in order to harmonize with others. A collectivist community, valuing interpersonal relationships, can be a strong source of support. There are “strengths of collectivism that should not be overlooked,” says Goldowitz.

However, these values are at odds in an American culture where the focus is on the individual to speak up and take up space with their needs. Between these two cultures is where AAPIs can struggle with voicing their emotional and psychological needs. “There is a sense of ‘I want to belong first, and then figure out my needs,’” says Goldowitz, “This causes a disconnect from one’s own feelings and thoughts. If you’re not connected with what’s going on for you, that’s a big barrier to even knowing you need mental health support.”

Project Lotus brings these conversations to the forefront. Through their community blog, they highlight a diversity of voices and open up the “pressure cooker” that AAPI youth may feel trapped in. Stories uplift queer self-love, unpack beauty standards and colorism, and make space for grief over anti-Asian racism.

The Indigenous Tribe Fighting Back Against the Addiction Epidemic

May 16, 2022

The Lummi Nation, a community of more than 5,500 people located on a small slice of land on the US west coast extending into the Salish Sea, has faced addiction issues on the reservation for decades. It has affected everything from crime to housing, families and foster care. And for over half a century, tribal leaders have been working to rid the reservation of drug abuse, explained Deanna Point, Scott’s interim director at Care.

“We just start getting our hands on one [drug], and then right after that, once we think we’re just finally getting our hands and getting some kind of relief from this drug that’s in our community, a new one comes,” she said.

In the last several years the situation has become particularly acute, due to the prevalence of highly addictive methamphetamine and then, most recently, lethal pure fentanyl, or some combination of the two.

On the Lummi reservation, Point described fentanyl as “the worst one that we’ve seen yet” due to how deadly it is. When it is combined with methamphetamine the risk of an overdose can be even greater.

These high numbers within the Indigenous community can be linked to historical trauma in the form of community massacres, forceful relocation and boarding schools, explained Dr Tommy K Begay, research assistant professor at the University of Arizona’s department of psychiatry and a member of the Navajo Nation. The trauma, he explained, resulted in maladaptive coping behaviors that sometimes include drug use, which were passed on to new generations.

Today, the Lummi Nation uses a combination of culturally based healing and western-based substance abuse treatment approaches, all centered on love and compassion.

The outpatient treatment program, Care, is housed in a small, one-story cream building. It offers group sessions that range from one hour a week to nine, medication-assisted treatment plans, and specialized programs for those who are pregnant or have children.

Group sessions typically include clients sharing a meal together, an important component of the Lummi Nation’s cultural identity, explained Point. There is also a culture room inside the facility, where clients often spend hours beading, cedar weaving and carving.

“What makes our program unique is we focus a lot on our tradition and cultural values. And some people come in, they might have roots to their cultural identity, but most of them aren’t going to have roots to who they are,” she said.

Understanding Black Grief

May 13, 2022

With Black Americans leading shorter and sicker lives, it’s likely they are also experiencing grief more often and earlier in life, making bereavement a health disparity of its own, suggests new University of Arizona research published in Frontiers in Psychiatry.

But personal losses are just one source of grief for Black Americans, say researchers Da’Mere Wilson and Mary-Frances O’Connor with the Grief, Loss and Social Stress Lab in the Department of Psychology in the UArizona College of Science.

In their paper, Wilson and O’Connor write that to understand the unique experience of Black loss, grief and bereavement, it’s also necessary to consider the collective grief Black Americans have suffered as the result of America’s long history of racialization and racial violence. That collective grief continues to be felt today, Wilson said, especially with high-profile cases of racial violence – such as the 2020 murder of George Floyd by a white police officer – repeatedly making headlines.

“Personal loss is a domain where the loss is more of an individual experience, like losing a loved one, whereas collective loss is more of an experience that happens communally,” said Wilson, a doctoral student in psychology. “The George Floyd murder is a good example. It was a personal loss for his immediate family and friends, but it was also a collective loss, in that many Black Americans looked at George Floyd as someone who could be their uncle, could be their brother or could be them.”

Collective grief isn’t often the primary focus of grief research, but it may be a critical component of the Black grief experience, which has been understudied in psychology, Wilson said.

Brain Scans May Reveal a Lot About Mental Illness, but Not Until Studies Get Bigger

May 11, 2022

MRI scans have allowed researchers to peer inside the human brain. And the technology is great at revealing damage from a stroke, or areas that light up when we see a face.

But brain scan studies have yet to offer much insight into the underpinnings of traits like intelligence, or mental health conditions like anxiety and depression.

A key reason is that these studies need to include scans of thousands of brains, instead of the dozens typically used, a team reported in the March 16 issue of the journal Nature.

“You need a very large sample, and bigger samples are better,” says Dr. Nico Dosenbach, an author of the study and an associate professor of neurology at Washington University in St. Louis. That’s a lesson the field of genetics has already learned, says Paul Thompson, a neuroscientist at the University of Southern California who was not involved in the research.

Differences in the brain that are associated with mental illness tend to be far less obvious, and far more controversial. For example, some studies have found that people with major depressive disorder have less activity in the brain’s frontal lobe. But the strength of that correlation varies widely from study to study. And there’s no way to look at the activity in any one person’s frontal lobe and know how that person is feeling.

Many brain scientists are still trying to digest the news that human behavior studies may require thousands of scans.

The ENIGMA Consortium, which Thompson helped create, is one effort to make this easy. The group maintains a database with more than 50,000 MRI scans. And scientists have already used that to identify brain differences associated with schizophrenia.

“There’s huge differences all over the brain in schizophrenia,” Thompson says. “The auditory centers that are involved in hallucinations are abnormal. There’s alterations in memory systems, in vision systems.”

But it may take even larger studies to find the brain areas and connections associated with mental illnesses like depression and bipolar disorder because the differences are far more subtle.

Veteran Inspires Fellow Veterans Struggling With Mental Health

May 9, 2022

Bill Klingenberg is a veteran and Peer Support Specialist at the VA in Lexington. He’s using a personal challenge to help others who might be in a similar situation.

“Air traffic controller,” said Klingenberg, who served in the U.S. Navy. “Was in it for 11 years. I was on three different ships,” he said. “Loved every minute of it.”

The northern Kentucky native grew up in Fort Thomas, just a couple of miles from Southgate.

“I had a bad case of PTSD related to the Beverly Hills Supper Club fire,” he said.

“They don’t allow you to be an air traffic controller with bipolar disorder, so it kind of ended my career,” he said.

Klingenberg returned to northern Kentucky. He lost his home, family, and cars. He went on to earn a degree in social work from the University of Kentucky.

Through the VA, Klingenberg found his calling to be a peer support specialist.

“It was like custom made for me,” he said. “Once I began to get it back together, I always wanted to help other people dealing with that stigma because it’s crushing.”

“I had this problem. I did this. Now, look at the results. It took 10 years, but I got it back together. And you can too.”