Anxiety, Panic, Confusion, Economy.

Everywhere you look there are projects and news reports, opinion pieces and political rhetoric about getting people into employment. Everyone must be employed whether they’re disabled or exhausted or with a national average reading age of 7. The world wide recession has nothing to do with one in 4 young people being unemployed or overall unemployment being at its highest for nearly 20 years: if you’re unemployed it’s your own fault.

The US, which is feeling the recession far more acutely than we are, is experiencing an explosion of panic disorder and anxiety has overtaken depression 2 to 1: 18 % of the population – 40 million people – have been diagnosed with it. My colleagues and I have noted a corresponding increase in the numbers of people we’re seeing who are very anxious rather than depressed and we wonder if the economic climate has anything to do with it. We’re told that to be unemployed is to be a benefit scrounger, and many of us still earning face daily anxiety about becoming unemployed.

Cognitive dissonance is the unpleasant state of believing things that conflict with each other and is most powerful – most uncomfortable – when it is about our own self image: “I am a good person and I shoplift/ drink too much/ endlessly gossip about my friends.”  Many people seem to be thinking: “I am a good person because I am employed and my job is constantly at risk so if I lose it I will become a bad person.” They know this is nonsense but it’s very real and has two major effects on the people experiencing it. They learn to put even more distance between themselves and the unemployed, and anxiety about becoming unemployed can go stratospheric. Both these cognitions tend to be unconscious.

The cure for cognitive dissonance is rationality. John* told me that he was proud to be called aggressive at work, proud that he could intimidate his staff into working harder. All he needed from me was techniques to cope with his panic attacks. He wanted to be cured within three sessions. Happily, there was clearly a part of John that didn’t demand this and we spent some weeks together rationalising that despite bullying his staff his sections’ productivity was decreasing and he was on the verge of collapse 4 or five times a week whilst at work. Perhaps something needed to change.

More weeks were spent exploring what those changes might be and John became increasingly visible as a sensitive, caring, worried man with a family he felt totally responsible for. Over time John was able to show more of himself to his fed-up subordinates who became less fed up and started to work as an effective team with John as their team leader rather than a martinet. John’s panic attacks reduced and continue to reduce with some of those techniques he wanted, and a pleasant side effect is that family life is happier too.

Mary* appeared calculating, obsessive and nasty at the same time as not being able to do anything about her situation because it was everyone else’s fault. After decades of hard work she now found herself unemployed, something that wasn’t her fault unlike all those lazy bastards out there. But no one would employ her because she was a working class white woman and Black, Eastern European or Asian people had taken all the jobs. She’d come to see me because her GP could find no cause for her dizziness and breathlessness and had suggested antidepressants or counselling. She could have had 6 free sessions at the GP practice but she’s always paid her way. Mary’s entire identity was tied up with being a hard working taxpayer and now that she wasn't employed and didn't pay income tax (though she, like every other unemployed person, does pay VAT and National Insurance) the foundation of who she was had disappeared and she was profoundly shamed and humiliated to join the ranks of people she’d sneered at all her life.

Mary spent weeks venting her spleen and then something suddenly snapped: “I’m a horrible person.” Actually, Mary was, like all other racist, classist, prejudiced people, fearful and very hurt by her own hatred. Hearing herself say vicious things week after week without having to defend her opinions or being backed up had shocked her. She nearly fainted, she felt nauseous and towards the end of that session she felt euphoric. I encourage every client to take 5 minutes in the Lighthouse garden before returning to everyday life and Mary took an hour. From that point Mary was able to begin rebuilding her life, understanding the difference between work, employment and activity, becoming a respected volunteer, asking interesting questions about who her friends were, and why, and who she might really want to be.

We are more than our job descriptions. It can be surprisingly difficult to really understand that.




*Names and identifying details have been changed.