Are Americans Raging Out of Control?

“I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore,” rants mad anchorman Howard Beale in the 1970′s movie satire Network. Beale’s nightly television rants inflame a nation of angry, frustrated citizens who have reached maximum overload and are fed up — with everything. Sound familiar? According to an article in the September 28, 2009 issue of Time magazine, pollster Frank Luntz surveyed 6,400 Americans earlier this year asking whether they agreed with Beale’s sentiment. A resounding 72% — 3 out of 4 — said yes.

The rude, angry tone in America today is the new hot media topic. Fanned 24/7 by the flames of ranting TV and radio hosts like Glenn Beck  and Bill O’Reilly, Americans are spewing anger and distrust.

• U.S. Representative Joe Wilson of South Carolina shocked his colleagues and the nation when he yelled, “You Lie!” during President Obama’s nationally televised speech to Congress.
• Tennis diva Serena Williams unleashed a profanity-laced threat at a line judge during a U.S. Open semifinals match.
• Rapper Kanye West grabbed the microphone away from a startled Taylor Swift during her acceptance speech for best female video at the Video Music Awards to declare that the winner should have been Beyonce.

Rudeness is a daily occurrence in any social community. The examples of bad behavior cited above received so much press because these people are supposed to be among our nation’s role models. Those who monitor the nation’s psychological temperature are concerned about the pervading lack of respect being expressed today. A 2002 Public Agenda survey found that 79% of Americans consider lack of respect a “serious national problem.” 

Anger-fueled rudeness seems to be increasing along with a sense of personal entitlement. Fanned by the ravings of national pundits and the selfish examples set by national celebrities, frustrated by the slow economic recovery, angered by the excesses of Wall Street, worried about the growing national debt, and concerned about providing for themselves and their families, usually well-mannered people are starting to crack under the strain. Rabid behavior during Congressional town-hall meetings over health care reform is just one example of anger run amuck in America.

To be continued on Monday: Regaining Control of Our Anger

Fighting the Out-of-Work Blues

The starting bell in the employment race has always rung in the fall. September has traditionally been the best time to look for a new job. Children start a new school year, freeing parents from daytime childcare duties. Collegiates return to college campuses, leaving stores hunting for replacements. Corporations assess staffing needs as they ramp up new marketing programs. Whether looking for full- or part-time work, most job seekers found success during fall recruitment drives. But that was before the recession and double-digit unemployment.

Today, job searches are taking months instead of weeks. Layoffs have made competition fierce, forcing more and better qualified applicants into the job pool. As job searches lengthen and savings dwindle, anxiety and feelings of desperation set in. Some people frustrated with their inability to find a job that will support them or their family give up and sink into depression.

But the burden is felt not just by job seekers. When layoffs occur, those left on the job often suffer survivor guilt. Those still employed are forced to take on greater work loads, work longer hours and assume greater responsibility, further increasing stress and anxiety. For some, the stress becomes too great. According to the U.S. Labor Department, 251 people committed suicide on the job last year, an increase of 28% over the previous year and the highest number since reporting began.

Losing your job doesn’t have to be a career death knell or plunge you into a pit of despair. Traumatic experiences can be a catalyst for positive change. Psychiatric counseling that focuses on cognitive-behavioral therapy can help you find the silver lining in a layoff or difficult job search. Losing a job can be the impetus you need to abandon a career you don’t enjoy, start a business or go back to school. It can be an opportunity to explore new interests, discover what is most important to you and reinvent yourself in a new career. If you are struggling with a job layoff or searching for a new direction in your life, or if you are feeling depressed and anxious about your job, cognitive-behavioral therapy under the direction of an experienced psychiatrist like Dr. Tracey Marks can provide the support and skills you need to meet life’s challenges successfully.

College Graduation: Living without a Net!

Taking those first steps into the “real world” can be an anxious time for college graduates. The thrill of achievement can be overwhelmed by new responsibilities as collegiates take their first fledging steps into adulthood. Finding a job, renting an apartment, managing finances, moving away from friends and family — college graduation is a time of many life-changing events. While many collegiates will have already shouldered some of these adult responsibilities, most have done so with a parental safety net in place to protect them from the inevitable misstep. Now that they’ve graduated, they’re living without a net for the first time.

Stepping out into the real world and taking on adult responsibilities is exciting, but it can also be a little scary and intimidating. The uncertain economy and high unemployment rate only add to the normal anxiety that surround the monumental changes that follow college graduation.

“Change can be frightening, but it is important to remember that it happens to everyone all the time,” psychologist Dr. David Palmiter said in an article on the American Psychological Association’s online Help Center. “Know that the new experiences and challenges you face will help you grow and discover your own path.”

The APA offers several tips for coping with post-graduation anxiety:

• Act. Taking action is empowering. Set goals, determine the steps necessary to achieve them, and get started!
• Attitude. Stay positive. Focus on what you can do and what you have to offer. Banish negative thinking.
• Resilience. Life has its ups and downs. Strive to turn negative experiences into opportunities to learn and improve.
• Connect. Stay connected to friends, family and professors. Turn to your support system when you need help or guidance.
• Discover. Take advantage of new opportunities, new friendships and new experiences to expand your horizons and discover all that you are and can be.

If the strain of moving out on your own starts to interfere with your ability to perform daily tasks or you find it hard to face your responsibilities, don’t be afraid to ask for help from a licensed psychiatrist. Cognitive-behavioral therapy can help you develop positive strategies to tackle the responsibilities of adulthood and move forward with your life.

Combating Dangerous Pattern Perceptions

Perceiving patterns where none exist, a psychological phenomenon called pattern perception, is a mental coping mechanism used by many people to combat uncertainty when events spin their lives out of control (see our June 10 post). It’s a phenomenon that’s on the rise in these times of economic uncertainty where rising unemployment, catastrophic investment losses, mortgage foreclosures, and a host of other worrisome factors have shattered people’s faith in their ability to control their future.

That loss of control generates an extreme anxiety that can impel people to create and act on connections and associations between innocuous, unrelated events, according to research published in the journal Science. In a series of experiments conducted by Jennifer Whitson of the University of Texas-Austin McCombs School of Business and Adam Galinsky of Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, researchers found that people can trick themselves into seeing nefarious conspiracies behind government pronouncements or business announcements.

Structure and order have a calming effect on our psyches while chaos generates anxiety that can lead to panic or depression. The desire for order can become so overwhelming that people fantasize connections between events to bring order to a world that they feel has become dangerously chaotic.

“Feelings of control are so important to people that a lack of control is inherently threatening,” Galinsky explained. “While some misperceptions can be bad or lead one astray, they’re extremely common and most likely satisfy a deep and enduring psychological need.”

The danger comes when people believe in or act on the imaginary patterns they have created. Illusory stock market trends can lead to poor investment decisions and increased financial anxiety. Imagined conspiracies between co-workers can increase job stress to intolerable levels. Delusional thinking can cause marital stress and jeopardize personal relationships. Fantasized government agendas can lead to paranoia and panic.

Exerting phantom control over chaotic events in our lives through pattern perception can hide a very real need for psychiatric help in coping with anxiety, panic disorders or depression. The combination of cognitive-behavioral therapy and psychodynamic therapy practiced by Atlanta psychiatrist Dr. Tracey Marks is effective in helping people find healthy ways to cope with and mitigate the uncertainties that pervade life today without resorting to harmful pattern perception.

Is Uncertainty Making Us More Superstitious?

The need to feel that we are in control of our lives is so basic to our sense of well being that many people may be finding safe harbor from uncertainty in superstitious thinking. When any aspect of our life spins out of control, as it has for many during these uncertain economic times, our need for control and order is so compelling that we will trick ourselves into finding patterns where none exist to stave off a growing sense of unease and anxiety. We may see trends in stock market activity or find unintended meanings in business meetings or impose hidden agendas on government announcements — all in an attempt to bring order to chaos. 

Human “desire to combat uncertainty and maintain control through structure can sometimes be so all consuming that people trick themselves into seeing and believing things that simply do not exist,” explains David Butcher of ThomasNet Industrial Market Trends in an online article about compelling new research published in the journal Science.

In a series of experiments conducted by Jennifer Whitson, assistant professor at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas-Austin and Adam Galinsky, Morris and Alice Kaplan Professor of Ethics and Decision in Management at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, lack of control caused study participants to “see images in noise, form illusory correlations in stock market information and even perceive conspiracies and develop superstitions,” Butcher noted.

“The less control people have over their lives, the more likely they are to try and regain control through mental gymnastics,” Galinsky said. In one experiment, people were shown pages of random dots, half formed images, half did not. Nearly half of study participants found discernible shapes in the dots without images. Finding patterns even when there were none had a calming effect on study participants and made them feel more in control.

Researchers applied the same principle to stock market investment. Study participants were given an equal ratio of positive to negative information about two companies. Those told that the market was volatile placed more weight on negative comments, determining investment to be riskier than it actually was. In another experiment, participants who lacked control were quick to find conspiracies lurking behind ordinary events. For example, in a story of a worker passed over for promotion, participants blamed co-worker sabotage.

On Friday: Conclusions

Psychology Plays Role in When You File Taxes

Today’s the day Americans pay the piper. April 15. The last day to pay your income taxes. Whether you filed your taxes weeks ago or plan to join the last minute queue at your local post office is as much a function of psychology as finances.

Financial experts say individual cash flow and return expectations govern how early individuals file their tax forms. People who expect a refund, particularly a large refund, tend to file early. Those with higher incomes and those who owe Uncle Sam money tend to file later. But, particularly this year, psychological forces are skewing normal filing trends.

Psychology often trumps financial considerations in determining when people file their taxes, contends Dr. Steven Krebaum, clinical associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. “Generally, it may be that psychology plays a larger role than economics in decisions of when to file,” Krebaum said in an April 14, 2009 article on UPI.com. More people may be filing later than usual this year out of fear or anger, he suggested.

Fear. Difficulty facing the reality of personal finances after the decimation of investment and retirement accounts has caused many taxpayers to take a “head in the sand” approach and file tax forms later than usual. Putting off filing is a way of avoiding the harsh reality they expect is waiting on the bottom line of their tax form. Unfortunately, not knowing where you stand financially only heightens financial anxiety. It’s better to get it over with. Knowing where you stand financially allows you to act, and action decreases anxiety.

Anger. The government’s bailout of Wall Street, AIG executive excesses, foreclosures, rising personal bankruptcies, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, devaluing of retirement funds, loss of personal investments, skyrocketing unemployment — there’s a lot to be angry about and people are focusing their anger on the government. The feeling that government bailouts are being made at their expense has created a taxpayer backlash. Angry taxpayers who chafe at giving the government any more money are paying their taxes at the last possible minute. It’s a legal way of expressing their displeasure.