吉特·克里特嘉德最近出现了记忆错觉,当时她从冰箱拿出培根和鸡蛋解冻,为第二天的早餐做准备。
她自言自语道:“等一下,我之前已经拿出来了吧?”然后觉得自己当天早些时候已经做了这件事,或者也有可能是一周前的事。她自己也说不清楚,因为天与天之间的界限对她来说已经变得越发模糊。
就在克里特嘉德思考这件事情之时,她意识到自瑞典于今年3月颁布居家隔离令之后,自己出现这种超现实时刻的情形越来越多。因为新冠疫情而每天在家工作的状态让克里特嘉德出现了心理方面的问题,她是一名软件开发咨询师,经常在各大科技会议上发言。
她每日生活内容的重复性越来越高,逐渐形成了一个往复循环,类似于上个世纪90年代电影《土拨鼠之日》(Groundhog Day)中比尔·莫瑞扮演的角色所经历的事情,只是没有什么笑点。克里特嘉德说:“我在计算之后震惊了,我意识到自己在家已经待了8周。我之前曾猜测会待4至5周的时间。每一天之间的界限越来越模糊。”
多名心理健康专家表示,克里特嘉德这种千篇一律的感受对于依然遵守居家隔离令的员工来说变得越来越普遍。此外,人们更有可能出现绝望的感受,即他们无力阻止这种已经让全球超过40万人丧生的致命病毒。
让疫情雪上加霜的是不断攀升的失业率,其造成的经济危机仅有大萧条能与之相提并论。有鉴于经济的萎靡不振再加上隔离政策的延长以及与疫情何时结束相关的不确定性,医疗基金会Well Being Trust预计,约7.5万美国人可能会死于所谓的绝望致死症,也就是酒精或非法药物导致的自杀和过量服药。
明尼那波利斯黑人居民乔治·弗洛伊德在被警察扣押过程中的死亡引发了全国各大城市的骚乱,也加剧了这一问题。暴力和破坏,再加上有关种族平等和政策偏见的担忧,会让人们有一种失控感。
医疗公司Crossover Health的行为健康项目经理迈克·波洛夫说:“形势已经够让人操心了,新冠疫情已经为人们带来了巨大的挑战。我们从心理医生那里听说,这个问题已经成为了人们心里咨询的焦点,也让人们感到更加难以应付。”
波洛夫称,潜在的种族紧张关系一直都是“人们刻意回避的问题”。有色人种族群数十年来一直在应对种族不平等所导致的创伤。Kaiser Family Foundation的数据显示,有色人种似乎受新冠疫情的冲击更大,这无异于在伤口上撒盐。他解释说,非少数民族群体遇到的一些困难包括直接应对此前可能从未遇到过的严重种族问题。
波洛夫说:“我们还得直面自身特权问题,并小心应对。这是一个非常困难的流程,但却非常必要。”
意料之中的心理健康危机凸显了各大公司在为员工提供社交关系以及自我价值感和归属感方面所发挥的重要作用。正如Well Being Trust的首席策略官本杰明·米勒说的那样,“各大公司可以打造有着健康心理环境的职场,一个能够让人们感受到关爱和安全的职场。”
米勒称,随着失业率的继续增加,人们已然感受到的强烈的社会孤立感可能会被放大,并导致自毁行为。米勒解释说,“我们在中午并不喝酒”,但工作能够为人们“设立清晰的界限”,失去工作实际上意味着这些界限的消失,可能会导致更多的人通过习惯性地饮酒来应对其焦虑感。
米勒说:“我们此前会说隔离的笑话。如今它已经变得不再那么有趣,酒精成为了很多人的大问题。”
员工们正在经历真实、长期创伤
阿里森·霍尔曼在过去30年中一直在研究心理创伤,涉及社会如何应对痛苦事件以及这些事件对人体所造成的身体损害,例如心脏问题和其他疾病。尽管新冠病毒疫情仅在数月前才爆发,但加州大学欧文分校的护理副教授霍尔曼认为,“这是我人生中最糟糕的事情,而且我觉得也是众多人一生当中所遇到的最糟糕的事情。”
霍尔曼称,与“9·11”恐怖主义袭击和波士顿马拉松爆炸事件不同的是,新冠疫情是一种“慢性压力源”,而且带有“无数的次级压力源”。
霍尔曼说:“有的人失去了工作,有的被迫在家办公,你还能怎么做?然而,你在家得给孩子上课,全身心地打理家务,还要在购物时注意安全,压力真的是太大了。”
“疫情对人们的健康和国家的福祉是一个巨大的威胁。”霍尔曼说。
确实,商业软件初创企业TileFive的创始合伙人安德鲁·波特认为,由新冠病毒疫情引发的创伤类似于阿富汗战争,他曾经在那里服役过三次。为应对战争创伤,波特曾经进行过心理健康治疗,他担心疫情将加剧员工此前存在的心理健康疾病。
波特在谈到那些受创伤后压力综合征折磨的退伍军人时说:“上战场让他们感到抓狂。”因为战争是这些老兵出现重大心理疾病的“临界点”,波特担心新冠疫情可能会让其他人出现同样的情况,放大其生活中他们从未应对过的未解决创伤。
波特在谈论新冠疫情对其生活和业务的影响时说:“无法掌控的因素太多了。”
波特说:“我不会让我的家人或公司去应对那些无法控制的事情,并因此感到压力倍增。”他告诉其雇员,他们有必要放宽对自己的要求,“无需追求完美。”
他说:“如果大家能够说:‘嘿,这确实很令人惋惜,确实很糟糕,但我们会挺过去的。’那么真的会很有帮助。仅这一点就可以让人们如释重负。”
在危机中应如何应对
高管培训公司Thrive Leadership的创始合伙人卡斯琳·斯沃迪称,在疫情期间,经理们应该为雇员设身处地着想,这一点至关重要。这意味着首席执行官必须更多地思考自己在员工心中的形象,谁可能会遇到经济方面的困难,并因为通过企业视频会议看到高管们高大上的别墅或豪华泳池而出现仇视心理。斯沃迪和克里特嘉德都听说一些高管最近均在采用这种方式办公。
斯沃迪在将这些高管与美剧《办公室》(The Office)中健忘的首席执行官比较时说:“就好比迈克,他总是无法理解自己为什么会给别人留下这样一个印象。”
斯沃迪在谈论高管及其与一般雇员的关系时指出:“高管个人应该设身处地为员工想想。”
她还建议高管应强调“机构的使命”,解释其业务在提供某些关键服务或满足抗疫活动直接参与客户的需求方面所发挥的重要作用。
Crossover Health的波洛夫建议雇员应注意预示潜在心理健康问题的警示信号。他说,糟糕的睡眠习惯,吃得过多,或无法集中注意力都可能是压力增加的表现。
波洛夫称,人们可以通过某些方法在当前的危机中管理自己的焦虑,例如进行冥想和专注于那些你能够掌控的任务或项目。
波洛夫谈到了人们在思考为什么会有某种感受的过程,他说:“我非常赞成在出现某种感受时要对其进行定性。科学告诉我们,在出现某种感受时对其进行定性实际上可以抑制这种情绪的强度。”
哈佛医学院的医师克里斯·帕尔默称,如果员工们发现自己无法调整,那么就需要对寻求心理健康治疗持开放的心态。帕尔默解释说,在危机期间,人们往往会避免寻求帮助,因为他们错误地认为导致其出现强烈忧郁或焦虑感受的罪魁祸首是危机,而不是让潜在心理疾病加剧的灾难。
帕尔默在谈到文化禁忌时称:“如今不幸的是,据我们所知,我并不认为疫情将改变人们对心理疾病的看法。”
对软件开发导师克里特嘉德来说,她最近一直在举行网播活动,以帮助员工更好地管理其压力和焦虑。在最近的一次虚拟会议中,她解释说,员工们可以通过一些简单的步骤来略微缓解自身的焦虑。在危机期间,仅仅只是询问对方“你还好吧?”便不失为与对方沟通的一种方式。如果你失去冷静,也没有关系。她说:“只需确保你记得对别人大吼大叫之后在第二天道歉。”
她表示,最重要的是,如果你感觉需要一定的帮助,不要害怕去寻求专业的指导。与心理健康专家接触有其可取之处。
克里特嘉德说:“我很幸运能够接受治疗,这样我便不会再次陷入无尽的黑暗之中。”(财富中文网)
译者:Feb
吉特·克里特嘉德最近出现了记忆错觉,当时她从冰箱拿出培根和鸡蛋解冻,为第二天的早餐做准备。
她自言自语道:“等一下,我之前已经拿出来了吧?”然后觉得自己当天早些时候已经做了这件事,或者也有可能是一周前的事。她自己也说不清楚,因为天与天之间的界限对她来说已经变得越发模糊。
就在克里特嘉德思考这件事情之时,她意识到自瑞典于今年3月颁布居家隔离令之后,自己出现这种超现实时刻的情形越来越多。因为新冠疫情而每天在家工作的状态让克里特嘉德出现了心理方面的问题,她是一名软件开发咨询师,经常在各大科技会议上发言。
她每日生活内容的重复性越来越高,逐渐形成了一个往复循环,类似于上个世纪90年代电影《土拨鼠之日》(Groundhog Day)中比尔·莫瑞扮演的角色所经历的事情,只是没有什么笑点。克里特嘉德说:“我在计算之后震惊了,我意识到自己在家已经待了8周。我之前曾猜测会待4至5周的时间。每一天之间的界限越来越模糊。”
多名心理健康专家表示,克里特嘉德这种千篇一律的感受对于依然遵守居家隔离令的员工来说变得越来越普遍。此外,人们更有可能出现绝望的感受,即他们无力阻止这种已经让全球超过40万人丧生的致命病毒。
让疫情雪上加霜的是不断攀升的失业率,其造成的经济危机仅有大萧条能与之相提并论。有鉴于经济的萎靡不振再加上隔离政策的延长以及与疫情何时结束相关的不确定性,医疗基金会Well Being Trust预计,约7.5万美国人可能会死于所谓的绝望致死症,也就是酒精或非法药物导致的自杀和过量服药。
明尼那波利斯黑人居民乔治·弗洛伊德在被警察扣押过程中的死亡引发了全国各大城市的骚乱,也加剧了这一问题。暴力和破坏,再加上有关种族平等和政策偏见的担忧,会让人们有一种失控感。
医疗公司Crossover Health的行为健康项目经理迈克·波洛夫说:“形势已经够让人操心了,新冠疫情已经为人们带来了巨大的挑战。我们从心理医生那里听说,这个问题已经成为了人们心里咨询的焦点,也让人们感到更加难以应付。”
波洛夫称,潜在的种族紧张关系一直都是“人们刻意回避的问题”。有色人种族群数十年来一直在应对种族不平等所导致的创伤。Kaiser Family Foundation的数据显示,有色人种似乎受新冠疫情的冲击更大,这无异于在伤口上撒盐。他解释说,非少数民族群体遇到的一些困难包括直接应对此前可能从未遇到过的严重种族问题。
波洛夫说:“我们还得直面自身特权问题,并小心应对。这是一个非常困难的流程,但却非常必要。”
意料之中的心理健康危机凸显了各大公司在为员工提供社交关系以及自我价值感和归属感方面所发挥的重要作用。正如Well Being Trust的首席策略官本杰明·米勒说的那样,“各大公司可以打造有着健康心理环境的职场,一个能够让人们感受到关爱和安全的职场。”
米勒称,随着失业率的继续增加,人们已然感受到的强烈的社会孤立感可能会被放大,并导致自毁行为。米勒解释说,“我们在中午并不喝酒”,但工作能够为人们“设立清晰的界限”,失去工作实际上意味着这些界限的消失,可能会导致更多的人通过习惯性地饮酒来应对其焦虑感。
米勒说:“我们此前会说隔离的笑话。如今它已经变得不再那么有趣,酒精成为了很多人的大问题。”
员工们正在经历真实、长期创伤
阿里森·霍尔曼在过去30年中一直在研究心理创伤,涉及社会如何应对痛苦事件以及这些事件对人体所造成的身体损害,例如心脏问题和其他疾病。尽管新冠病毒疫情仅在数月前才爆发,但加州大学欧文分校的护理副教授霍尔曼认为,“这是我人生中最糟糕的事情,而且我觉得也是众多人一生当中所遇到的最糟糕的事情。”
霍尔曼称,与“9·11”恐怖主义袭击和波士顿马拉松爆炸事件不同的是,新冠疫情是一种“慢性压力源”,而且带有“无数的次级压力源”。
霍尔曼说:“有的人失去了工作,有的被迫在家办公,你还能怎么做?然而,你在家得给孩子上课,全身心地打理家务,还要在购物时注意安全,压力真的是太大了。”
“疫情对人们的健康和国家的福祉是一个巨大的威胁。”霍尔曼说。
确实,商业软件初创企业TileFive的创始合伙人安德鲁·波特认为,由新冠病毒疫情引发的创伤类似于阿富汗战争,他曾经在那里服役过三次。为应对战争创伤,波特曾经进行过心理健康治疗,他担心疫情将加剧员工此前存在的心理健康疾病。
波特在谈到那些受创伤后压力综合征折磨的退伍军人时说:“上战场让他们感到抓狂。”因为战争是这些老兵出现重大心理疾病的“临界点”,波特担心新冠疫情可能会让其他人出现同样的情况,放大其生活中他们从未应对过的未解决创伤。
波特在谈论新冠疫情对其生活和业务的影响时说:“无法掌控的因素太多了。”
波特说:“我不会让我的家人或公司去应对那些无法控制的事情,并因此感到压力倍增。”他告诉其雇员,他们有必要放宽对自己的要求,“无需追求完美。”
他说:“如果大家能够说:‘嘿,这确实很令人惋惜,确实很糟糕,但我们会挺过去的。’那么真的会很有帮助。仅这一点就可以让人们如释重负。”
在危机中应如何应对
高管培训公司Thrive Leadership的创始合伙人卡斯琳·斯沃迪称,在疫情期间,经理们应该为雇员设身处地着想,这一点至关重要。这意味着首席执行官必须更多地思考自己在员工心中的形象,谁可能会遇到经济方面的困难,并因为通过企业视频会议看到高管们高大上的别墅或豪华泳池而出现仇视心理。斯沃迪和克里特嘉德都听说一些高管最近均在采用这种方式办公。
斯沃迪在将这些高管与美剧《办公室》(The Office)中健忘的首席执行官比较时说:“就好比迈克,他总是无法理解自己为什么会给别人留下这样一个印象。”
斯沃迪在谈论高管及其与一般雇员的关系时指出:“高管个人应该设身处地为员工想想。”
她还建议高管应强调“机构的使命”,解释其业务在提供某些关键服务或满足抗疫活动直接参与客户的需求方面所发挥的重要作用。
Crossover Health的波洛夫建议雇员应注意预示潜在心理健康问题的警示信号。他说,糟糕的睡眠习惯,吃得过多,或无法集中注意力都可能是压力增加的表现。
波洛夫称,人们可以通过某些方法在当前的危机中管理自己的焦虑,例如进行冥想和专注于那些你能够掌控的任务或项目。
波洛夫谈到了人们在思考为什么会有某种感受的过程,他说:“我非常赞成在出现某种感受时要对其进行定性。科学告诉我们,在出现某种感受时对其进行定性实际上可以抑制这种情绪的强度。”
哈佛医学院的医师克里斯·帕尔默称,如果员工们发现自己无法调整,那么就需要对寻求心理健康治疗持开放的心态。帕尔默解释说,在危机期间,人们往往会避免寻求帮助,因为他们错误地认为导致其出现强烈忧郁或焦虑感受的罪魁祸首是危机,而不是让潜在心理疾病加剧的灾难。
帕尔默在谈到文化禁忌时称:“如今不幸的是,据我们所知,我并不认为疫情将改变人们对心理疾病的看法。”
对软件开发导师克里特嘉德来说,她最近一直在举行网播活动,以帮助员工更好地管理其压力和焦虑。在最近的一次虚拟会议中,她解释说,员工们可以通过一些简单的步骤来略微缓解自身的焦虑。在危机期间,仅仅只是询问对方“你还好吧?”便不失为与对方沟通的一种方式。如果你失去冷静,也没有关系。她说:“只需确保你记得对别人大吼大叫之后在第二天道歉。”
她表示,最重要的是,如果你感觉需要一定的帮助,不要害怕去寻求专业的指导。与心理健康专家接触有其可取之处。
克里特嘉德说:“我很幸运能够接受治疗,这样我便不会再次陷入无尽的黑暗之中。”(财富中文网)
译者:Feb
Gitte Klitgaard experienced déjà vu recently while taking bacon and eggs from her freezer to thaw for breakfast the next day.
"Wait, I just did that?" she asked herself, thinking she had done exactly the same thing earlier in the day. Or maybe it was the week before. It was hard to tell because her days were becoming indistinguishable from each other.
As Klitgaard thought about it, she realized she was having more of these surreal moments ever since shelter-in-place rules went into effect in her country, Sweden, in March. Working from home day in and day out because of the coronavirus pandemic was taking a mental toll on Klitgaard, a software development consultant and regular speaker at tech conferences.
Her days were becoming more repetitive, blurring into a loop, akin to what Bill Murray’s character in the 1990s movie Groundhog Day experienced, minus the jokes. “I was shocked when I started counting and realized I had been home for eight weeks,” Klitgaard says. “I would have guessed four or five. Days are blending together.”
Klitgaard’s feeling of monotony is becoming increasingly common for workers who are still under shelter-in-place orders, according to several mental health experts. Additionally, people are more likely to feel hopeless, that there’s nothing they can do to stop the deadly virus that has claimed over 400,000 lives globally.
Adding to the coronavirus fears are concerns about rising unemployment that has created an economic crisis rivaled only by the Great Depression. Economic malaise coupled with prolonged isolation and uncertainty about when the pandemic will end has led the health care foundation Well Being Trust to estimate that roughly 75,000 Americans may die from so-called deaths of despair, the suicides and overdoses from alcohol or illicit drugs.
The unrest in cities across the country following the death of a black Minneapolis resident, George Floyd, while in police custody, is compounding the problem. The violence and destruction, coupled with concerns about racial equality and police bias, can make people feel unmoored.
"It was already so much. COVID was already so challenging for everyone," says Michael Boroff, a behavioral health program manager at the health care firm Crossover Health. "We are already hearing from our therapists that this is the focus from their sessions—this has made things even harder for people."
Underlying racial tensions have long been the "elephant in the room," Boroff says. Communities of color have been dealing for decades with the trauma that comes from racial inequality. Adding to the trauma is that COVID-19 appears to be hitting communities of color even harder, according to data from the Kaiser Family Foundation. Some of the struggles for nonminority communities include dealing head-on with serious issues of race that they may not have otherwise tackled, he explained.
"We are also being confronted with facing our privilege head-on and reckoning with that," Boroff says. "It’s a very hard process, but it’s a very necessary one."
The expected mental health crisis underscores an important role companies play in providing employees with social connections and feelings of self-worth and belonging. As Well Being Trust chief strategy officer Benjamin Miller says, “Companies can create a psychologically healthy workplace, where people can feel taken care of and feel safe.”
As unemployment continues to balloon, Miller says that the already intense social isolation people feel could magnify, leading to self-destructive behaviors. Work “sets good boundaries” for people, Miller says, explaining that “we don’t drink at noon.” Losing one’s job essentially means losing those boundaries, which could lead to more people habitually drinking to deal with their anxiety.
“We joked about quarantinis,” Miller says. “Now it’s much less funny—alcohol is a real issue for a lot of people.”
Workers are experiencing real, prolonged trauma
Alison Holman has been studying trauma for the past three decades, researching how society copes with distressing events and the physical damage those events create in the human body, leading to heart problems and other disorders. Although the coronavirus pandemic has been around only for a few months, Holman, an associate professor in nursing at the University of California at Irvine, believes that “it is the worst event of my lifetime, and I think the worse event of many people’s lifetimes.”
Unlike tragedies like the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the Boston Marathon bombings, the coronavirus pandemic is a “chronic stressor” with “numerous secondary stressors,” says Holman.
“You lose your job or you’re told to work from home, so what do you do?” Holman says. “You’re homeschooling your kids, running a full-time household, trying to stay safe while getting groceries—the stress is just remarkable.
“This pandemic is a very, very serious threat to the health and well-being of our country,” Holman says.
Indeed, Andrew Potter, the founding partner of business software startup TileFive, believes trauma caused by the coronavirus pandemic is akin to that of the war in Afghanistan, in which he served three tours. Potter, who has undergone mental health treatment to help him deal with the trauma of the battlefield, is concerned that the pandemic will exacerbate workers’ pre-existing mental health illnesses.
“Going to war is what put them over the edge,” Potter says of veterans who suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome. As war was the “tipping point” for these veterans to experience major mental illness, Potter worries that the coronavirus pandemic may do the same to others, magnifying unresolved trauma from their lives that they haven’t dealt with.
As Potter says about how COVID-19 has impacted his life and his business, “there’s so much stuff that is out of our control.”
“I’m not going to put my family or company in the position to stress over the things we can’t control,” Potter says. He’s telling his employees that they need to give themselves “permission to not be perfect.”
“That’s been really helpful to be able to say, ‘Hey this does hurt, it does suck, but we’ll get through it,’” he says. “That alone takes a weight off your shoulders.”
How to cope in crisis
During the pandemic, it’s crucial for managers to be empathetic to employees, says Cathleen Swody, a founding partner of the executive coaching firm Thrive Leadership. This means that CEOs must consider more how they appear to workers, who may be struggling financially and resent seeing their chief’s opulent mansion or luxurious swimming pool during corporate video calls, as both Swody and Klitgaard have heard about some executives doing recently.
“It’s like watching Michael,” Swody says, comparing those executives to the oblivious CEO from the sitcom The Office. “He’s just not seeing how it’s coming across.
“Personally put yourself in their shoes,” Swody says about executives and their relationship to rank-and-file employees.
She also suggests that executives point to the “mission of the organization,” explaining the important role their businesses may serve in providing certain crucial services or catering to customers who are more directly involved in addressing the coronavirus pandemic.
Crossover Health's Boroff recommends that employees pay attention to warning signs that indicate potential mental health issues. Poor sleeping habits, overeating, or having trouble concentrating can all be signs of increased stress, he says.
Practicing meditation and focusing on tasks or projects you can control are some ways people can manage their anxiety during the current crisis, Boroff says.
“I’m a big proponent of labeling feelings as they happen,” Boroff says, referring to the process of thinking about why you may be feeling a certain way. “We have science that shows the very act of labeling emotions as they happen can actually dampen the intensity of that emotion.”
Harvard Medical School physician Chris Palmer says that workers need to be open to seeking mental health treatment if they find they are having trouble adapting. Too often during crisis, people avoid seeking help because they mistakenly believe that it’s only the crisis causing their intense feelings of depression or anxiety rather than the calamity worsening underlying mental illnesses, Palmer explains.
“Unfortunately right now, as far as we can tell, I don’t think that the pandemic is changing people’s perceptions of mental illness,” Palmer says, referring to the cultural taboo.
For Klitgaard the software development coach, she has recently been hosting webinars intended to help workers better manage their stress and anxieties. In one recent virtual conference, she explained some simple steps that employees can take to feel just a little bit better. Just the act of asking someone “How are you?” can be a way to connect to a person during this crisis. And if you lose your cool, that’s okay. Just make sure that “if you yell, go apologize the next day,” she says.
Most importantly, if you feel you need some help, don’t be afraid to reach out to professional help, she says. Connecting with a mental health expert could be a saving grace.
“I’m lucky enough to be medicated, so I don’t go into the huge dark pits anymore,” Klitgaard says.