Sit down, relax and let’s talk for exactly 50 minutes.
By Carol Tannenhauser
It’s been the longest, highest, lowest roller-coaster ride in our nation’s modern political history and most people want to get off. The 2016 presidential campaign has made a lot of folks sick to their stomachs, angry to their cores, and apprehensive about another shriek-inducing surprise, waiting around the final curve. Add extremely high stakes, 24-hour news coverage, and ever-changing polls, and you have what The Atlantic called “a recipe for anxiety.”
The Upper West Side has the added stress of being deprived of its time-honored tradition of “real debate about issues,” said Dr. Barbara Bulow, PhD, an Upper West Side psychotherapist. “One of the sad things about this election is people cannot have an intellectual discussion about it without becoming emotional in a negative way. Most are not struggling with their choices; on both sides, they’re adamant. I think the deterioration in civility has been so destructive for the country that it impedes people being able to discuss the issues in a way that one person listens to the other. Nobody listens. And both sides say things that we were taught as kids never to say.”
We asked Dr. Bulow for advice about how to handle the stress of the election.
“My advice, generally, as a therapist is, if there’s something that’s very upsetting to you, try to figure out what your feelings are, but don’t keep dwelling on it in a negative way. If there’s something you can do about the situation, you sort out what that is, and you do it. For example, with the campaign, they’re running buses to Philadelphia this weekend for people to go door to door, or there’s giving money or making calls.”
Dr. Bulow also pointed out that, after 9/11, the American Red Cross said that “just watching the buildings burn and fall was not helpful to people. They should turn the TV off.”
What about after the election? Thanksgiving is coming and families and friends from both sides of the aisle will be gathering and you can bet feelings will still be raw.
“Absolutely I would consider banning the discussion of politics,” Dr. Bulow said. “What’s the point when people are really entrenched in their positions? You’re not going to change any minds. It’s just going to inflame people more.”
In the interest of mental health, we’re also disallowing comments on this post!
Photo by Andreas Eidh.
