As Houston recuperates from a devastating winter storm amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, Assistant Dean of Community Learning and Engagement Cathy Maris turned to Dr. Sean Fitzpatrick for insights on how to navigate these extremely stressful times. Dr. Fitzpatrick is a Community Learning and Engagement instructor, executive director of The Jung Center, Houston and a psychotherapist in private practice. He will be teaching the spring 2021 Glasscock School course “The Psychology of Transformation in Times of Turmoil.”

I find it helpful to think about self-care in this moment as having three simple elements:
1. Get present.
2. Feel what you feel.
3. Connect.
–Sean Fitzpatrick

It’s been an enormously stressful year for most people. On top of the pandemic, we recently experienced extreme cold weather, power outages and water loss affecting millions. You’ve described the experience of such prolonged stress as “a rubber band stretched to its limit and held there.” How does such chronic stress affect people?

The hits just keep coming, don't they? I've found the metaphor of the rubber band helpful because it shares a linguistic connection with our word "resilience." Before it was adopted as a psychological idea, resilience referred to the ability of a material to return to its original form after an impact or stressful event. "Elasticity" is a close synonym. Those of us who are less-than-scrupulous housekeepers know that a rubber band stretched around a pile of envelopes and left there for years loses its ability to spring back (and may crack and fall apart). When we undergo stress without periods of rest, we lose our elasticity.

Resilience depends on rest. We just can't spring back without regular periods of relief. Chronic stress can lead to a range of health problems, difficulties in relationships, and even substance use issues and diagnosable mental health disorders.

You’ve helped essential workers practice self-care during the pandemic, including healthcare workers, public health officials, nonprofit professionals, first responders and last responders. Could you share a few concrete strategies that we can all use to manage stress and regain balance when we’re under relentless pressure?

Big, comprehensive plans are helpful if we have time to implement them. But that's not the nature of crisis -- many of us were already functioning out toward the end of sustainability before the pandemic. I find it helpful to think about self-care in this moment as having three simple elements:

1. Get present
2. Feel what you feel
3. Connect.

Especially under stress, we tend to live our lives in the past -- reacting to the extraordinary challenges that have emerged -- and in the future -- trying to accomplish the big new goals we have and worrying about what new challenge may emerge.

Simply allowing ourselves to come into the present moment, to notice what is actually going on around and within us, is the crucial first step, which allows us to feel what is actually happening in our bodies. A well-regarded book on trauma, by Bessel van der Kolk, is titled "The Body Keeps the Score." When we return to the present, we can feel what is actually happening in our bodies and begin the essential process of addressing the accumulated impact within us. We don't feel "anxious," we feel tightness in our shoulders, constricted bowels, sweat on our foreheads. Noticing it allows us to address it.

The last step is to connect. Isolation is the enemy of mental health, and the pandemic has robbed us of so many normal and important ways to connect with others. We have to be intentional about it now, whether it's planning Zoom calls or socially-distanced outdoor activities or other ways to remind ourselves we are not alone -- and we're more than just victims of forces outside our control.

Your spring course, The Psychology of Transformation in Times of Turmoil, is very unique with its small, experiential format and a combination of presentations and interactive exercises. What can students can expect from this course?

The pandemic has underlined for me how much we learn from each other -- especially when the subject is how to live a more fulfilled and meaningful life. So, while I'll introduce some useful ideas and clinical perspectives for us to consider, we will focus on what our own experiences are, right now. I can't tell you how often this year I've heard human service workers say that they thought they were the only ones struggling -- and how much they learned from others' experiences.

Is there anything else you’d like to share?

Just that I never leave these experiences without being changed by them. They say we teach what we most need to learn -- and I've learned so much from students about how to better care for myself and others. I'm grateful for the chance to learn with Glasscock students.

Learn more and register for The Psychology of Transformation in Times of Turmoil course, starting Thursday, March 25^th.

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