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Between disappointment and recovery, where are we?

2021-01-21T15:55:39.596Z


Crises arouse collective emotions. Various authors have studied the psychological phases experienced by affected societies and organizations


Crises arouse collective emotions.

When something unexpected happens that paralyzes us, people go through certain stages together.

It is not an individual process, but a group pattern.

Experts in the management of catastrophes or significant crises have analyzed the behaviors that we experience collectively.

American Deborah J. DeWolfe wrote in 2000 a training manual for social service workers facing disaster.

A top-of-the-line book that has been highly referenced during this pandemic we are dealing with.

A disaster causes a stressful impact on those who have experienced it firsthand or on those who have been close.

There are two types of stress, individual and collective.

Many people have not fallen ill from Covid, but indirectly they have suffered it by being confined, by the loss of loved ones, by the economic crisis ... We can say that, collectively, we are all subject to the psychological impact.

DeWolfe mentions the work of psychologists Myers and Zunin, who studied

the psychological phases experienced by societies and organizations affected by a major crisis

.

Let's see which ones they propose in order to identify them in us, in our community and in our organizations.

1)

Before the disaster.

It was the first stage we went through last year, before Covid arrived.

We knew that something was happening in China and Italy, but we did not imagine the scale of what was going to happen.

As DeWolfe points out, being a crisis caused by diffuse causes that cannot be seen (it is not a hurricane or a tornado, for example), it is common for there to be anger or denial, as happens in a part of the population.

When one cannot prepare for a disaster, such as a tsunami or Covid,

people feel more vulnerable, we even develop feelings of guilt

.

2)

Impact

.

We live it intensely in the first wave.

The collective pattern is one of blockage, anxiety and even a lot of anger

, as distilled on social media during the first weeks of the pandemic.

3)

Heroism or rescue.

Group behavior in the face of a disaster also reveals altruism and recognition towards the professionals who help the victims.

There is a collective need to identify heroes to rescue us from trouble

.

Possibly, with the Covid it is applicable to the applause to the toilets during the month of March.

4)

Honeymoon

.

It is a period of

certain optimism that people experience shortly after suffering a disaster

.

It seems that the aid is going to arrive and that there will be sufficient support to face the crisis.

We live through this stage when we come out of our first lockdown and rely on recovery data.

5)

Disappointment

.

People calculate the impact of the crisis on their lives, both personally and collectively.

It is the inventory phase, which opens the door to disappointment.

The aid does not have the desired effect, there is a certain feeling of abandonment, the confinements return and this

leads to pandemic fatigue

.

Possibly it is a stage that part of the population is still living, or that some business organizations are experiencing.

Whether it is more or less pronounced will depend on the level of resilience and the type of leadership.

6)

Recovery.

Disappointment opens the door to restoration.

It is a stage that, in major crises, takes about a year to arrive, as shown in the graph.

Disaster recovery is never linear, as none of the previous phases are.

However, it

is important to recognize the triggers that activate the exit

(such as the start of vaccination, for example)

and those that temporarily sink it back

(new waves or mutations of the virus).

The restoration consists of three stages: the first, the recognition of past pain.

You have to talk about what you have experienced to overcome it.

That is why friends or professionals we can rely on are especially important and help in the exit process.

Pain cannot be overcome if we do not turn it into words that allow us to distance ourselves from it.

The second stage is that of adjustment, where the measures that have been taken must be reviewed.

Finally, the reconstruction towards a new life, which will be based on the lessons learned.

In short, and according to experts,

the recovery takes years both due to its emotional and economic impact

.

It is very likely that at this time we are between the disappointment phase and the restoration phase, although the transition from one to the other is subtle.

It is important that we are aware that, although we are with one foot in the restoration stage, this is not exempt from important decreases, such as the first anniversary, for example, which at a collective level will have a certain downward impact.

Let's be clear that everything is part of a process that, sooner or later, will end.

So let's look at it with hope and optimism

Source: elparis

All news articles on 2021-01-21

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