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Like many Americans, Mark Seery watched the Virginia Tech school shooting unfold on the cable news networks in April 2007. It wasn"t just the catastrophe that disturbed him—it was how some psychologists were advising the campus community to respond in the wake of the devastating tragedy. "There"s a sense that"s very much alive within the professional community that if people don"t talk about what they"re feeling, and try to suppress it, somehow it will only rebound down the road and make things worse," says Seery, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Buffalo.
That, says Seery, is one of many examples of situations in which the first response to a tragedy"s psychological ramifications is to encourage victims and bystanders to talk about their emotions in the wake of the event. That idea is constantly reinforced by a battery of television therapists who harp on the importance of sharing your feelings. But is that really the best medicine
Seery"s new research offers an alternative to that philosophy. His work suggests that those who do not reveal their feelings in the wake of a collective trauma turn out just fine, if not better, than those who do. Seery used an online survey to query a national sample about their reactions to the 9/11 attacks, beginning on the day itself. The respondents were divided into two groups: those who said they were initially unwilling to talk about their feelings, and the rest.
At the end of the two-year survey period, those who decided not to share their feelings reported fewer related mental and physical problems. That effect was even more pronounced among those who lived close to the tragedy. Seery also found an interesting correlation between the level of sharing and well-being. Participants could decide how much they wanted to report about their feelings on the survey. Seery found that there was a correlation between those who wrote the lengthier, more in-depth descriptions of their feelings and those who had worse mental and physical statuses.
Does the study turn conventional wisdom completely on its head, suggesting that it"s better to stay quiet in the aftermath of a traumatic event Not quite. Seery explains that the respondents who felt the need to divulge their emotions started off in a worse mental and physical state in the first place, likely a bit more susceptible to the stress of a collective traumatic event. "The people who were talking were probably more distressed by the event," says Seery. "The initial distress motivated them to want to have some place to talk about it...whereas people who chose not to talk were less likely to say that they were trying cope." The take-home message, then, is that there is no one right way to react to traumatic events; there is a wide range of normal and healthy responses to tragedy. What advice do some psychologists give to victims after a disaster