Talking Your Way to Change

In this episode I talk about survivor guilt, which is a particular kind of guilt that develops in people who have survived a life-threatening situation when others have not survived. Or It can be guilt about what they did or did not do during the traumatic event and how this might have contributed to others deaths/injuries. Using interview clips from three different catastrophic events: Holocaust, HIV AIDS Epidemic, and US Veterans I offer examples that illustrate how this type of guilt shows itself. 

Naparstek, Belleruth (2004). Invisible heroes : survivors of trauma and how they heal. New York, N.Y.: Bantam Books. 

Boykin FF. ⁠⁠The AIDS crisis and gay male survivor guilt⁠⁠. Smith Coll Stud Soc Work. 1991;61(3):247-259. doi:10.1080/00377319109517367

Cobb S, Lindemann E. Neuropsychiatric observations. Annals of Surgery. 1947;177(1):814–824. [⁠⁠PMC free article⁠⁠] [⁠⁠PubMed⁠⁠] [⁠⁠Google Scholar⁠⁠]

Niederland WG. Clinical observations on the “survivor syndrome” The International Journal of Psychoanalysis. 1968;49:313–315. [

⁠⁠https://youtu.be/7be3O9ckZ1c?si=l6qO1OozKd2ADKCl⁠⁠

Rivera R.M. Coronavirus Pandemic: A Trigger for Survivor’s Guilt? Lat. Psychol. Today. 2020;7:27.

https://peterattiamd.com/estherperel/

Understanding the type of guilt you are experiencing can inform you of whether or not to bare the guilt and move through the mourning process. If your guilt is not justified it can be helpful to identify this as neurotic guilt and realize it's self-serving nature and the unlikelihood of it leading to positive change.

Fairbairn, William Ronald Dodds (1952). Psychoanalytic Studies of the Personality. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Kavaler-Adler S. From neurotic guilt to existential guilt as grief: the road to interiority, agency, and compassion through mourning. Part I. Am J Psychoanal. 2006 Sep;66(3):239-59. doi: 10.1007/s11231-006-9020-8. PMID: 16969702.

If a task takes you 60 seconds or less do it the moment and work your way to less clutter.

Mayr, U. & Kliegl, R. (2000). Task-set switching and long-term memory retrieval. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 26, 1124-1140.

Rubin G. (2009). The Happiness Project. New York: Harper Collins Publishers. Jun 29, 2017

Discussing how lyrics match up with complex trauma disorder.

Video of the song

This episode is an expansion of a previous episode How to Choose a Therapist. In this episode, I discuss the 4th Wave of Psychotherapy Neuroscience and Trauma Informed Psychotherapy. I include definitions of trauma and examples of trauma informed therapy modalities. Highlighted in this episode is Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which is a frequent clinical presenting issue.

https://youtu.be/xSXciYo6Z_I?si=Nyo6eOnsYYKmnJ3J

https://open.spotify.com/track/5K0dqIdylxIoIZ5PHLthpX?si=fe983533647147f2

Affirming yourself can be done in many ways, using positive affirmation whether in writing, speaking, or listening to them from a recording allows you an opportunity to replace those negative thoughts. The psychology theory underpinning how affirmations work is called self-affirmation theory.

Minakshi, R. (2020). Positive Affirmations and its Benefits on Psychological Well-Being. Journal of Psychological Science. Vol 13, No 1. 

Cascio, C. N., O’Donnell, M. B., Tinney, F. J., Lieberman, M. D., Taylor, S. E., Strecher, V. J., & Falk, E. B. (2016). Self-affirmation activates brain systems associated with self-related processing and reward and is reinforced by future orientation. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 11(4), 621-629.

Sherman, D. K., & Cohen, G. L. (2006). The psychology of self‐defense: Self‐affirmation theory. Advances in experimental social psychology, 38, 183-242.

Cohen, G. L., & Sherman, D. K. (2014). The psychology of change: Self-affirmation and social psychological intervention. Annual Review of Psychology, 65, 333-371.

My message today is to use your little bits of leftover time. Those minutes between tasks that we tend to throw away. Gretchen Rubin in the Happiness Project identified the one-minute rule to create order in your life and the 5-minute rule is from CBT used for issues of procrastination. 

Resentment is not a core emotion, it is a complex emotion that often indicates an unmet need. 

Plutchik, R. The Emotions. New York: Random House.

Brene Brown 2021. New York: Random House. Atlas of the heart : mapping meaningful connection and the language of human experience. 

Plutchik proposed a psychoevolutionary classification approach for general emotional responses. He considered there to be eight primary emotions—anger, fear, sadness, disgust, surprise, anticipation, trust, and joy. Plutchik argues for the primacy of these emotions by showing each to be the trigger of behaviour with high survival value, such as the way fear inspires the fight-or-flight response.

Plutchik, R. (2000). Emotions in the Practice of Psychotherapy: Clinical Implications of Affect Theories. Published by APA.