For a summary of the current economic crisis, we need to look no further than the recent comment by President Obama, who said, "this is a big problem and it's going to get worse."
The recession will wreak (if it hasn't already) very obvious damage: reduced pay checks; joblessness; home repossessions; loss of health insurance; hundreds of thousands of families restricting their spending to the bare essentials.
Less apparent however, but just as significant, are the effects of the crisis on the nation's emotional and mental well-being. If there's one factor that is almost guaranteed to trigger psychological difficulties it's stress - and millions of Americans are going to find themselves under severe, sustained, and in many cases, unprecedented levels of stress as a result of this downturn.
It's not just those who are out of work who are going to feel the pressure of course. It's everyone who thinks they may be at risk of losing their job, or those having to work harder, and probably for less money, as companies seek to pare employment costs to the bone. Becoming jobless is a hammer blow, for sure, but uncertainty can be just as stressful. In fact, how much we feel in control of our lives has long been recognized as a crucial factor in determining our emotional and mental well-being.
Pick almost any major psychological problem and stress will be right in the middle of it, either as a cause or as an exacerbating factor. Depression, insomnia, anxiety, worry, anger, relationship problems, addictions and substance abuse - stress can trigger them all, and make them much harder to overcome if or when they do arise.
But there's another troubling item to add to this list, another psychological problem that looks certain to increase over the course of the economic crisis. That problem is paranoia, or the unrealistic belief that other people want to harm us in some way.
We're all familiar with the term "paranoia," but most of us have no idea how prevalent it is. That's understandable: until the last decade or so, even health professionals believed that paranoia was only found in people with severe mental illness (around 1 percent of the population). However, numerous recent research studies have shown that around 25 percent of us are having regular paranoid thoughts. Meaning, paranoia is as common as depression and there is good reason to predict it may be on the rise.
A recession is a peculiarly fertile breeding-ground for paranoia. Co-workers can suddenly seem like rivals and threats. After all, if someone has to leave their job, naturally your colleagues would rather it was you, wouldn't they? In a shrinking economy, opportunities for advancement are likely to be limited, and competition for promotions ever more intense. Moreover, there's no getting away from these fears; everyone is talking about them. Our anxiety levels are ratcheted up; the ancient fear mechanisms of the brain are activated; and we're on the alert for danger from any quarter.
It's not just personal. One likely factor in the growth of paranoia over recent years is our growing awareness of conspiracies and cover-ups. Trust in authority, we are regularly reminded, is at an all-time low. If that fire needed stoking, the economic crisis has already obliged. Witness the widespread complaints that recent governmental action to bail out banks amounted to protection of a phenomenally wealthy special interest group at the expense of an increasingly impoverished public. Chances are many more challenges to public trust in government are going to be thrown up before the recession is done.
How then to cope with the psychological turmoil that the present crisis may unleash - and with paranoia in particular? In fact, there's much you can do for yourself - by eating and sleeping well; regularly exercising; keeping the social part of your life going; reading as much as you can about the problem you're grappling with; applying some tried-and-tested psychological self-help strategies (cognitive behaviour therapy is the pick of the bunch here); and, if necessary, being ready to seek a therapist's advice.
Paranoia can pose particular difficulties because most of us know so little about it. If you don't realize how widespread paranoid thoughts are, they're likely to cause you more distress. So, in addition to the strategies we've just mentioned, it's important not to let these thoughts spook you: people may not talk about these kinds of feelings, but they're very common.
Share your experiences with trusted friends and family. Practice challenging your paranoid thoughts. Did your boss really intend to ignore you when you saw them in the corridor? What alternative explanations might there be? Ask yourself what you'd advise a friend with similar worries. And remember: however distressing your thoughts may seem, they are only thoughts and not necessarily a reflection of reality. Cultivate "mindful" detachment: watch the thought come to you, remind yourself that it doesn't matter, and let it go off into the distance. Concentrate on what you're doing, rather than what you're thinking.
Remember, things don't have to get worse. With the right approach, they may even get a little better.
Dr. Daniel Freeman and Jason Freeman are co-authors of PARANOIA: The 21st Century Fear (Oxford University Press, January 2009). You can learn more about this topic at www.paranoidthoughts.com.
