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Just watching disaster reports can hurt your heart

　　【Psychological words】

　　Vicarious trauma is a traumatic experience caused by empathy, where people are indirectly exposed to a severe traumatic event by watching, listening, reading related news reports, or discussing the event, even though they have not experienced the traumatic event. Others experience sympathy and empathy for the trauma, resulting in a traumatic response as if they were at the scene.

　　On March 21, China Eastern Airlines flight MU5735 lost contact and crashed over Wuzhou City, Guangxi during its mission from Kunming, Yunnan to Guangzhou, Guangdong.

This crash has touched the hearts of the people of the whole country. Everyone always pays attention to the search report and prays for the victims.

Faced with the disaster information, many netizens were deeply saddened, and some even had symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) such as crying and insomnia.

　　It is widely believed that when disaster strikes, only people who have experienced it firsthand experience mental health problems like PTSD.

But psychologists have found that just reading disaster-related reports can cause people to develop PTSD.

So, what is the reason for this?

　　Traumatic experiences caused by empathy

　　Post-traumatic stress disorder refers to the delayed emergence and persistence of psychological and mental disorders of an individual after an individual experiences, witnesses, or encounters one or more actual death events involving themselves or others, or is threatened with death or serious injury.

　　There are three common symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

One is intrusive symptoms, patients often have nightmares, traumatic scenes in the brain, accompanied by severe stress physiological reactions, such as tremors, rapid heartbeat, etc.; the second is avoidance symptoms, patients avoid long-term or continuous symptoms Events related to the traumatic experience, even selective amnesia, unable to recall the details of the trauma; the third is the symptoms of increased vigilance, the patient will appear hyperalert, panic reaction, accompanied by inattention, anxiety and so on.

　　So why does reading disaster reports also show symptoms of PTSD?

　　This is because of vicarious trauma.

The concept of vicarious trauma was coined by psychologists McCann and Pearman in 1990 to describe the traumatic experience a psychotherapist feels in the process of helping a client.

　　This concept originally referred to professionals who help others, such as police officers, firefighters, doctors, social workers, etc. Later, scholars expanded the definition of vicarious trauma: traumatic experiences caused by empathy, that is, people who have not experienced Traumatic events, but indirectly exposed to severe traumatic events by watching, listening, reading relevant news reports, or discussing the event, etc., out of sympathy and empathy for the trauma of others, resulting in a traumatic response as if experiencing the scene in person .

　　The result of the combined effect of physical and psychological factors

　　Since the more you look at it, the more uncomfortable it is, why don't people take the initiative to reject negative news to protect themselves?

This is because the human brain has a network of neurons that can instantly sense and empathize with the suffering of others—mirror neurons.

　　The discovery of mirror neurons dates back to 1988.

In monkey brain experiments led by neuroscientist Zorati at the University of Parma in Italy, the researchers found that certain neurons in the brains were activated when the monkeys grabbed a banana, and when the monkeys saw the researchers grab a banana , these neurons were also activated.

Scientists have named such neurons as mirror neurons, and they generally believe that mirror neurons are the material basis for empathy (empathy).

At the same time, scientists have also found that mirror neurons make emotions contagious, and the contagion of emotions occurs automatically at the subconscious level of animals.

　　In addition to physiological reasons, existing psychological studies have shown that humans are inherently more sensitive to negative information, remember negative emotions better, and are more likely to interpret an event from a negative perspective.

The phenomenon that humans give greater weight to negative information in memory, emotion, decision-making, etc. is called negative bias.

And this may be related to human evolution. Compared with positive information, negative information may be more life-and-death. When our ancestors encountered danger (negative events), they needed to invest more emotions, memories, to avoid death, to perpetuate self and race .

　　Ancient humans encountered far more dangers than contemporary humans, and those ancestors who had no negative bias and lack of perception of risk may have long since disappeared along the dangerous evolutionary road with their "positive bias" genes.

　　If there is a problem, actively block relevant information

　　So, who is more prone to vicarious trauma?

How can we avoid similar psychological problems ourselves?

　　People who are prone to vicarious trauma usually have these characteristics: have suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, sensitive and vulnerable personality, cognitively negative and pessimistic, strong empathy, easy to suggest, have a rescuer complex... If depression has occurred , anxiety, eating and sleep disorders, etc., it is necessary to actively reject and block disaster-related information, which is the most effective protection for oneself.

　　To avoid vicarious trauma, we need to be moderately disengaged and remind ourselves not to become overly engrossed in grief.

In addition, people need to have a social support system, with family and friends to accompany and support each other.

　　Last but not least, the existence of vicarious trauma allows us to see the purest kindness in the depths of human nature.

At the same time, it is also necessary to remind people that they should properly separate themselves and take care of themselves, so that they can better take care of and help others.

　　(The author Yang Jianlan is a national second-level psychological counselor)