Posted on 01/02/2009 5:04:22 PM PST by Diana in Wisconsin
New York, NY (AHN) - More Americans are seeing their psychotherapists with financial stress as the most common emotional issue brought out. Experts attributed the growing epidemic of anger, anxiety and emotional stress to the worsening economic climate gripping the U.S.
As a result, according to the October American Psychological Association survey, 83 percent of U.S. women and 78 percent of men were going through increasing stress over job security, housing problems and the shrinkage of their retirement funds.
For women, money issues had emerged as their top concern, eclipsing personal health worries. Within six months, worries about the economy among female Baby Boomers zoomed from 18 percent in April to 92 percent in September.
The economic stress is affecting everyone, said Corte Madera psychotherapist Ruth Kalb. Car repair workers fear they will have less vehicles to work on, housewives dread they could not longer afford to stay at home, while company executives have to deal constantly with financial issues such as reducing salaries and laying off workers.
University of California Berkeley professor of public health Ralph Catalano explained to the San Francisco Chronicle, "If you lose your job you are more likely to have clinically significant psychiatric illness. So you have anxiety, depression antisocial behavior."
Because of the pressures, Catalano forecasts higher levels of violence within family members and more alcohol-related ailments among workers who become jobless.
San Francisco therapist Ginny Pizzardi added, quoted by the San Francisco Chronicle, "Everybody's freaking out and pulling in because they don't know what's going to happen... When we're afraid, we always hunker down. We try to control what we can control."
Because of the looming economic crisis, the San Francisco Suicide Prevention office observed callers are now focusing on problems with food, shelter and finances from the usual relationship problems.
The APA survey said the negative effects of financial stress will be reflected in more health problems, worsening relationships and lost productivity at work.
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sarc/
Yet they keep on voting Liberals in. My God they are insane.
I feel fine.
We are insane. We are still the richest country on the face of the planet, facing such petty worries compared to most everyone else - and we are going apoplectic.
Yep, no stress here on economy.
Just fear because of the absolute dumbasses that are going to running/ruining our once great country.
If I had enough money to pay a psychotherapist $120 an hour, I wouldn’t feel half so stressed (and in any case I certainly wouldn’t be paying anybody to listen to me beef!)
I think that the bankruptcy of most of the mainstream media would help the mental state of much of the country.
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