The Psychological Effect of Crisis

by K.J. Wetherholt

In light of the Haitian earthquake and the subsequent aid efforts there, and having recently attended a meeting at one of the UN cluster agencies' headquarters in NYC on psychology, development issues and crisis, it was disconcerting to me that there is no current permanent program in place at the UN or among many different aid agencies, or one that can be immediately implemented, to commonly do psychological needs assessments among both crisis-affected populations and for workers in the field.

After food, water, and shelter, such needs are considered a tangential, secondary, or non-essential matters that only get ad hoc attention in rare circumstances. Some agencies or organizations are better than others at recognizing this as a critical need, which is especially true among crisis-affected populations, as the psychological well being--which includes issues of safety, security, and trust--fundamentally affect long-term recovery and development in post-conflict and post-disaster areas. This is indeed something that we will be seeing prove true, and with veritable profundity, during Haiti's post-earthquake reconstruction.  Continued...

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Commentary: The Journey to Individuation – and Responsibility - Part III

by K.J. Wetherholt

It is here that I am going to take a departure from simple commentary and get into something more substantively. In part I and part II, I described the issues with foisting adult responsibilities on children, the educational system failing students, and the need for adults to take up their rightful role as “elders” who are re-learning the inherent sense of responsibility that used to be expected of adults. As “the Girl Who Silenced the World for Five Minutes” suggested, this sense of responsibility is paramount, or else the new generation of young men and women will have to do what we refused to do out of apathy, superficiality over substance, bickering, feigned ignorance, or sheer laziness—which may or may not have something to do with the sense that, following the atomic bomb, some part of us, even subconsciously, started to believe that all life—and everything on the planet—is inherently disposable, and that short term gain was preferable to looking toward a long-term that may not even exist.

To learn to take up that responsibility and to move through the Wasteland, as it were, to learn how to grapple what humanity has gotten itself into, we need to perhaps revise Jung’s timing in terms of Individuation—we can no longer wait to do our soul searching until after middle age—we’d better find what’s important to us now, not as selfish human beings, but ones with a little more depth than that, and we’d better act on it for the benefit of more than just ourselves. What we leave the next generation has to be an undisputed priority, and that indeed means cleaning up our mess. Continued...

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Commentary: The Journey to Individuation—and Responsibility: Part II

by K.J. Wetherholt

In Part I, I talked about the issue of kids and education, following President Obama’s speech to schoolchildren in Virginia following the Labor Day weekend. I discussed how children are truly deemed numbers by education, despite their protestations to the contrary.

I talked about how kids are being forced to grow up before their time—are being pressured to adopt a sense of adult responsibility for their futures—when even in elementary and middle school, which was a time for many of us to dream about what we would become instead of being forced into making a decision and preparing for it at such a young age—including in elementary and middle school.

I talked about teachers sometimes being the last bastion of support for school-age kids, and that last positive adult contact being taken away form them by the very system which is supposed to be supporting their growth as human beings. I also suggested that conceptual learning is being forced onto kids before their minds and development are ready for it—making existential issues muddy and confusing—when what kids need during adolescence is structure, safety, and solid foundations which give them the confidence and the ability to walk forward, without taking the ground out from underneath them and forcing them to accept adult concepts just for the sake of appearing progressive.

I talked about how the perception of schools counted for more than the welfare of students themselves—and how those are indeed these days more often than not mutually exclusive. Continued...

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Commentary: The Journey to Individuation—and Responsibility: Part I

by K.J. Wetherholt

On Tuesday night, President Barack Obama stood before a group of students in Virginia to commemorate the first day of a new school year. His spoken remarks, and those found online here, show a president who is asking the students of this country to understand their role and their responsibility, not just to themselves, but as citizens of the United States.

I was happy, at first, to see that he did not give students a way to get off the hook. No matter what background, what family conditions, what race, gender, or economic status—something is expected from each student. To be his or her best. No momentary difficulty or failure is an excuse to give up entirely. There is no quick fix for success. It is hard work, and the questions he asked hearkened back to the most quoted speech of President John F. Kennedy, asking “not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”

President Obama:

“So today, I want to ask you, what’s your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country? “

I was instantly reminded of something I had written back in college about Jung’s concept of Individuation. Individuation is the concept Jung came up with for the second phase of life, after the education and structures of young adulthood—when one in middle age seeks to answer larger questions about him/herself and his or her place in the whole—while seeking, too, to be a whole human being. You have already established yourself and have given of yourself to your family and to the community. You have already outgrown the more immature phases of life that demanded structure—you are ready now to ask the deeper questions. Continued...

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On the Subject of Censorship: BURN THIS BOOK

by K.J. Wetherholt

Being a proponent of human rights and humanitarian subject matter of any kind, and in particular the reflections or influence of these tenets in the media--whether in literature, journalism, photojournalism, art, film, television, new and social media and beyond--these last weeks in Iran have been inordinately important, even despite the near-tabloid coverage of Michael Jackson’s death. Michael Jackson did touch may people, and for important reasons, and I by no means disparage that. But what I am concerned about is that other important issues are being ignored because of it.

Something that has been truly evident by anything I have written in past months has been the importance of certain freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and now, as evidenced by the events in Iran following their elections, freedom both of assembly and the importance of fair and free elections.

Those who saw the clip which has become viral of Neda Agha-Soltan, the young Iranian woman shot to death in the streets of Tehran for demonstrating against the election results, perhaps can feel the visceral sense of what it must have meant to be one of those demonstrators, feeling first-hand the heart of the adage we as Americans have come to take for granted: freedom isn't free. As those who have demonstrated are attesting, and something, again, which we may have forgotten, there are times when it demands struggle and sacrifice. Continued...

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Flashback Review: The Lives of Others

by K.J. Wetherholt

In hearing about the 12 year sentence of lard labor for nothing more specific than "grave crimes" against North Korea, journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee are on the minds of many, including the realization that they are indeed pawns of a totalitarian regime bent on "proving" some sort of strength through the subjugation of others. Instead, it proves nothing but cowardice, for only a despotic regime would brutally subjugate others to prove a sense of power or control.

With this in mind, it reminded me of the film The Lives of Others, which I reviewed first in 2007 for the Humanitarian Media Foundation (HMF). I wanted to repost this here, because the issues are similar. North Korea is, like East Germany was during the Cold War, a communist regime which controlled its population through fear, tyranny, and an abject lack of personal freedom, believing that such methods were necessary for absolute power and control of its population. No one knew the truth about such regimes unless those inside were able to smuggle news out. While we do not know if Laura Ling and Euna Lee were across the border into North Korea from China, we do know that they were researching and doing a story on human trafficking. And it is true that now they have some sense what other citizens of North Korea most fear when facing off against the government. Continued...

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The Modern Meaning of Memorial Day

by K.J. Wetherholt

In the United States, since World War I, the last Monday in May, which was once known as “Decoration Day,” has been known as “Memorial Day.”

While many will be setting up their grills, weather-permitting, and fixing barbeque for friends and family alike, or gathering with friends at restaurants, or in whatever location, thankful for a long weekend and looking forward to the summer, numerous journalists will also be making commentary on what this day means. They will be talking about our soldiers, and whether one is for or against the two wars in which we are currently embroiled, they will be reminding us that those who have fought and died for us, our country, and our freedoms, should be foremost in our minds.

I agree with this wholeheartedly, for whether one is for war or against it, no one should take issue with our veterans themselves and only have inherent respect for an experience none could imagine unless in their shoes. My great-grandfather, a veteran of the Spanish-American War, and WWI on the Western Front, is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. He is buried with others who have marked our country’s sacrifice in the midst of conflict.

But I would also like to make commentary on something that we should also be thinking about on this day. Let me amend that to say this day, and perhaps on every other, particularly for those of us who live in the West.

Earlier this month, on May 3rd, was World Press Freedom Day. It was a day that came and went to little fanfare. Even in this day when Iran is limiting or ceasing people’s access to Facebook during elections—where they should be able to communicate freely and exchange information about candidates—to the arrest and imprisonment of an Iranian-American journalist, Roxane Sabieri, who was accused of spying against Iran (who sang the American anthem to give herself strength during the ordeal), freedom of speech and freedom of the press have never been such important issues as they are now. Now, in this information age, this age of instant communication via varying means from SMS, email, Facebook and other social networking sites, IM, Skype, mobile phones and video conferencing, freedom of information has never been easier and more immediate. However, in most countries around the world, it is still limited.  Continued...

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Notes from the UN: "From Conflict to Peacebuilding - The Role of Natural Resources and The Environment"

by K.J. Wetherholt

Having been invited to attend a UNEP (United Nations Environmental Programme) panel titled, "From Conflict to Peacebuilding - The Role of Natural Resources and the Environment" on May 15, 2009, I was interested to see what issues this panel would address, knowing well from past experiences that humanitarian issues--including those during conflict--are in one way or another either essentially tangential to or directly linked with environmental issues.

Most people would consider themselves aware of this connection in theory; it would seem natural that as humanity interacts with the environment, there would be some way in which one affects the other. It might even be reasonable to assume that certain conflicts would result. But specific connections are sometimes less able to be drawn unless one has been amidst situations in which certain populations have been in crisis, and the connection between humanitarian issues and environmental issues becomes more pronounced.

The American public often does not, unless they happen to click on one of these reports on the UN site, or happen to see something buried in the international section of a newspaper or online resource, give the topic vast amounts of thought, at least in terms of conflicts of populations continents away. And, too, such environmental causes of conflict are often not "sexy" enough to get enough coverage, no matter how often the terms of "climate change" or "global warming" are bandied around along with their rather dramatic ramifications. When thinking of environmental issues, people instead immediately perhaps think of the image of a bearded Al Gore talking about climate change, or "do-gooder" environmentalists in Birkenstocks raising hell, or governments giving lip-service to such issues as they continue to dump waste, vote down clean energy, or get pressured by lobbyists to support business interests over proposed truths of basic ecology.

The reason for this is perhaps that these familiar images, stereotypical as they may be, occur among nations of the geo-political North—or what we consider to be "industrialized" nations, including in the West, which are definitely the "haves" of the world. Basic needs, such as access to clean water and reliable sanitation, farmable land, access to natural resources like coal, oil, and other minerals, may be an area of concern, but as much as people may be raising hell about them here in the West, while finite, for us, they’re not at the moment non-existent.  Continued...

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The Alzheimer's Project on HBO: A Caregiver's Response

by K.J. Wetherholt

Not too long ago, I had written an email to someone who had witnessed the love of a caregiver for his wife who had Alzheimer's Disease. It was in response to the awe the writer had for the compassion, patience and tenderness this man had for the woman who long before had succumbed to the last stages of what has come to be known as "the long goodbye." 

For those of us who know this disease intimately, in having watched loved ones go through it, including those whom we have cared for, we know all too well the qualities that are necessary to walk this particular path of emotion which seems an inherent part of the process of watching someone you love slowly slipping away. We know, too, for those of us who have eventually lost that loved one, the aftermath that comes, and unfortunately is rarely addressed in the discussion about Alzheimer's Disease.  Continued...

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