Mental Illness is Contagious
Personality Disorders are Positive Adaptations in a World Where Survival is the End Game
The deeply ingrained survival instinct is hardwired in human beings. And throughout time, we have adapted to circumstances in ways that would ensure our survival. Positive adaptation, sometimes called psychological resilience, is a psychological system of coping skills employed by people who are faced with traumatic events. This therapeutic coping system meets adversity and stressful situations with an adjustment that is hopefully positive and increases emotional resilience and survival.
Clearly, we live in a time of mass trauma. Collective trauma is the psychological distress that a group — usually an entire culture, community, or another large group of people — experience in response to a shared trauma. In order to impact the entire group, such traumas are usually devastating in their scope and impact.
Examples of collective trauma include:
- War, occupation, and other military conflicts.
- Terrorist attacks.
- Pandemics and epidemics.
- Recessions and depressions.
- Genocide and religious persecution.
- Racial trauma, misogyny, apartheid, and class-based…
