In my previous column, I wrote about calm versus fear, and how we need to, simplistically put, calm fear with facts.
However, the fear mongers continue their drum roll and that’s too bad because lies can seem so loud in comparison to truth spoken reasonably. Instead of listening to the scientists and healthcare professionals who are working either in the research of infectious diseases or the trenches of caring for the patients who have contracted them, our attention gets deflected to the prattling of media celebrities with fake news and politicians posing for photo ops.
Kudos to the nurse from Maine, Kaci Hickox, who spoke out for her rights based on science and knowledge against the punitive quarantine foisted on her by Gov. Chris Christie. Do we need to worry about the Ebola crisis? Of course, we should be concerned. But our concern is misplaced. Our fear has trumped our altruism—our compassion.
The best way to contain Ebola and finally to eradicate it from West Africa, and thereby ultimately reduce the threat to “us” is to help “them.” In other words, we need to do everything we can to support the health worker willing to take the risk to care for those infected. However, instead of commending the compassionate professionals, we condemn them to unwarranted quarantines or, worse, criminalize them.
This is the antithesis of altruism — pure selfishness founded in fiction rather than fact.
The focus must change — so that we respond to the people who are dying and suffering, and who need financial and physical aid. The focus must change so that we become cheerleaders rather than act like a lynch mob to the selfless healthcare professionals willing to endure the hardships of their assignments to West Africa.
Ironic how we are the same people who can pooh-pooh vaccinations and forget to wash our hands. We are the same people who cut funding from scientific and medical research. We need to reinvent ourselves, don’t you think?
* Kayta Curzie Gajdos holds a doctorate in counseling psychology and is in private practice in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. She welcomes comments at MindMatters@DrGajdos.com or 610-388-2888. Past columns are posted to www.drgajdos.com
About Kayta Gajdos
Dr. Kathleen Curzie Gajdos ("Kayta") is a licensed psychologist (Pennsylvania and Delaware) who has worked with individuals, couples, and families with a spectrum of problems. She has experience and training in the fields of alcohol and drug addictions, hypnosis, family therapy, Jungian theory, Gestalt therapy, EMDR, and bereavement. Dr. Gajdos developed a private practice in the Pittsburgh area, and was affiliated with the Family Therapy Institute of Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, having written numerous articles for the Family Therapy Newsletter there. She has published in the American Psychological Association Bulletin, the Family Psychologist, and in the Swedenborgian publications, Chrysalis and The Messenger. Dr. Gajdos has taught at the college level, most recently for West Chester University and Wilmington College, and has served as field faculty for Vermont College of Norwich University the Union Institute's Center for Distance Learning, Cincinnati, Ohio. She has also served as consulting psychologist to the Irene Stacy Community MH/MR Center in Western Pennsylvania where she supervised psychologists in training. Currently active in disaster relief, Dr. Gajdos serves with the American Red Cross and participated in Hurricane Katrina relief efforts as a member of teams from the Department of Health and Human Services' Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.Now living in Chadds Ford, in the Brandywine Valley of eastern Pennsylvania, Dr. Gajdos combines her private practice working with individuals, couples and families, with leading workshops on such topics as grief and healing, the impact of multigenerational grief and trauma shame, the shadow and self, Women Who Run with the Wolves, motherless daughters, and mediation and relaxation. Each year at Temenos Retreat Center in West Chester, PA she leads a griefs of birthing ritual for those who have suffered losses of procreation (abortions, miscarriages, infertility, etc.); she also holds yearly A Day of Re-Collection at Temenos.Dr. Gajdos holds Master's degrees in both philosophy and clinical psychology and received her Ph.D. in counseling at the University of Pittsburgh. Among her professional affiliations, she includes having been a founding member and board member of the C.G. Jung Educational Center of Pittsburgh, as well as being listed in Who's Who of American Women. Currently, she is a member of the American Psychological Association, The Pennsylvania Psychological Association, the Delaware Psychological Association, the American Family Therapy Academy, The Association for Death Education and Counseling, and the Delaware County Mental Health and Mental Retardation Board. Woven into her professional career are Dr. Gajdos' pursuits of dancing, singing, and writing poetry.
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