Parents' worst nightmare is a lesson in crisis management

Portugal: Terrible guilt automatically descends upon parents when anything negative happens their children, regardless of whether…

Portugal:Terrible guilt automatically descends upon parents when anything negative happens their children, regardless of whether they could have done anything to avert it, writes clinical psychologist Marie Murray.

How some individuals transcend the most profound crises in their lives while other people buckle under the seemingly trivial has always been of interest to psychologists and psychiatrists working with people at the coalface of human distress.

There are major adaptations to be made in life, even when the expected happens at the expected time. But when the unexpected happens, when life changes irretrievably in a moment, people are propelled into situations that there can be no psychological preparation for.

That is when they are truly tested. That is when human competence and coping are demonstrated. We have examples of this when public disaster, personal tragedy and private calamity occur. What is most astounding about our species is not how we crumble but how we cope.

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But who could cope with their child being snatched from their apartment on a family holiday and the subsequent parental agony of speculating upon that: reliving, over and over, imaginary scenarios at the core of which lie unimaginable happenings for your little child? Who could cope with the "if only"?

For one of the dominant emotions after tragedy is the belief that it could have been averted, if only intuition, psychic ability, divine intervention or human interference had stopped it.

The most terrible guilt automatically descends upon parents when anything negative happens to their children, regardless of whether or not they could have done anything to avert it. The role of parents as guardians, sentinels and protectors automatically confers this guilt. But there are other mechanisms at play besides guilt.

Psychological theory in relation to crises shows how protective are the shock and denial that automatically descend upon people in extremis, providing an emotional anaesthetic that allows them to manage during the unimaginable. Responding to the requirements of the situation, sustaining relationships with family and friends and people who can resource them, calling upon all external agencies that might assist, preserving a sense of hope and competence, these are the qualities that research shows assist people to cope in crises.

A number of responses kick in during crises. The experience of what is called "derealisation" as people experience themselves as being disconnected from the world around them and living in a dream-like state often cushion people at times of disaster and extreme stress. What is called "depersonalisation" similarly brings a sense of not being there, an altered sense of one's own reality, a feeling of self-estrangement that provides reprieve.

Another major factor in coping with crisis is the psychological defence mechanism known as "sublimation" when it takes the form of channelling energy and emotion into positive problem-solving action in pursuit of a cause. When a crisis is over people are often amazed at how practical, non-emotional, focused and determined they were at the time of the event as if someone else was operating their body and mind and giving them a reason to survive what would otherwise overwhelm them.

Often families immobilised by the loss of a child will keep going for the sake of their other children. People do what they need to do. Parents do what their children need. And some people, while suffering personal tragedy in the public domain, under unpalatable media conjecture, seem to stay upright when they are being knocked repeatedly, like figures at a fairground shy. Back they bounce, again and again, to do what they must do.

As the rather bizarre turn of events in the Madeleine McCann abduction have designated Kate and Gerry McCann suspects in a parents' worst nightmare, I think that it behoves us who do not know them not to cast anything further their way - not surmise, not speculation - not anything but the response they have requested, to keep up the search for their daughter.