Epidemics – Fear Taking Precedence Over Facts
I’m in the midst of reading a fascinating book by Philip Alcabes. The very title, “Dread: How Fear and Fantasy Have Fueled Epidemics from the Black Death to Avian Flu” gives me fodder for at least one article without even reading the book.
There is so much fuel for thought in this book, that you will have the opportunity to read several articles as my mental juices are stimulated.
As a Mind-Body Psychotherapist I work with the concept and the emotion of fear. From the lowest level of anxiety to full blown panic, this emotion can cause the heart to race and one to shudder in anticipation of the possible event that one’s life feels out of control.
Decisions made when in a state of fright are not, by their very nature, rational. It’s an emotion, not logic.
The amygdala in the limbic brain becomes activated when we are overwrought. The cortex, the rational part of the brain takes a back seat. The admonition to be reasonable has no effect other than to induce anger in someone in a state of severe agitation.
Let’s look at the word “epidemic.”
Do a “gut check” right now. Just reading the word, does your abdomen twist a little, perhaps even hurt? Do you want to act on emotion or are you calm enough to look beyond the hype to the facts and evaluate the pros and cons of your actions.
Think of your beliefs regarding this word bandied about by FOX, CNN and other national and local news sources. Looking in the thesaurus, one of the phrases is “widespread disease.” That’s what the “ordinary” person thinks of. The mind then runs to such things as the plague, AIDS, SARS, bio-warfare, H1N1 and so on.
People are in such panic they are ready to take any vaccine the pharmaceutical industry dishes out, even though it has not been tested, to avoid getting sick.
What does “epidemic” mean to epidemiologists. Alcabes, who is an associate professor of Urban Public Health at Hunter College of the City University of New York, as well as a visiting professor at Yale’s School of Nursing, describes it as a “disease” appearing more often than usual.
When flu season hits, the outbreak hits the news. When another teen dies in an automobile accident, unless he or she is prominent, the family grieves privately. The number of teens who loose their lives on the road while in a car is four or five times that from illness. Yet the tragedy of the lost future in our youth is not continually in public awareness.
The flu outbreak is unusual. The death from another car crash is tragic but not unusual.
How we handle the out of the ordinary depends upon our own beliefs as well as the attempt of public agencies to influence feelings and actions.
The question for you to examine is, “Are you able to gather information before following the hysteria driven sound bites, or do you allow yourself to be swept away in the artificially created tsunami of fear?”
Cathy Chapman, Ph.D., LCSW is a licensed clinical social worker assisting people achieve their dreams of health, wealth and abundance through Mind-Body Psychology. She works from a spiritual and energetic model employing BodyTalk and Psych-K to balance the body and change beliefs. Cathy offers free of charge a powerful spiritual healing tool anyone can use. Get your Soul Healing Prayer now at http://www.distancegrouphealing.com.
April 5th, 2011 at 4:08 am
It is somewhat peculiar that you criticise drug companies for failing to test vaccines (which is false) but then offer total bunkum yourself. Please explain precisely how you have tested your “soul healing tool”? Glad to see that it is free though and that you have a license for it!