Attacks on children and young people: the collective trauma and the feelings that remain

Thinking about immediate attitudes is natural and important, but groundwork with mental health is critical

Compassion, from the Latin with passion , means “to suffer with”. According to the dictionary Michaelis AND THE “pain caused by the hurt of others” that feeling we get whenever the suffering of another touches us in some way.

“Empathy is what puts us in the other person’s shoes. But, many times, I can’t solve or improve their situation and I end up in a state of anguish, despair and things like that. questions from ‘ and if… ‘, which lead us to a very negative emotional factor. Empathy is essential, but we must have emotional skills to deal with these scenarios,” explains Julia Trindade, a psychiatrist member of the Brazilian Psychiatric Association.

When a teenager assaults students and beats up a teacher, or when a man invades a kindergarten and beats up children, we all seem to die a little inside. Seeing a daughter lose her mother or parents lose their children in such a violent and incomprehensible way brings immediate anguish: I could have been here, that father could have been me.

“Painful situations like these show the human vulnerability in the face of the unknown and the unexpected, generate the discomfort of the lack of predictability of the now. There are intense pains in the face of collective mourning”, explains the psychoanalyst Andrea Ladislau, doctor in Contemporary Psychoanalysis.

This is how the pain that is for the other – who faces a suffering that, however much we share, we will never have the dimension – is, to a certain extent, also for us. Because when something like this happens, we know we’ve all lost.

Attacks increasingly common in Brazil

To give you an idea, according to a report presented by the federal government’s transition team, 35 students and teachers were murdered in school attacks in Brazil by 2022 – out of 16 attacks, four occurred in the second half of last year. Five victims were added to this figure this year: the teacher of the State School Thomazia Montoro, in Sao Paulo, and the four children of the Cantinho Bom Pastor Educational Center for Early Years (CEI), in Blumenau (SC).

The numbers refer to a period of 22 years: before 2000 there were no such attacks. But if, in Brazil, mass attacks prove to be something relatively recent, the United States has been living with alarming data for decades. This year alone, from January to March, there have been 131 mass shootings. with 195 killed and 503 injured, according to the Gun Violence Archive organization.

a complex problem

Many factors can be accounted for in such a tragic outcome: the dissemination of hate speech and the display of violent practices – both stimulated on social media -, incipient online legislation, the powerlessness of the state towards the mental health of society and the easy access to firearms, especially in cases of shootings in the United States, among many other issues.

[quote]The situation is complex and simplistic answers become superficial, even if it is natural that they appear as first reactions.

But when we react, we must be careful not to further fuel the cycle of violence in which we live. “Inciting reactivity, that mass behavior, does not solve the problem. On the contrary, we perpetuate it, always generating a feeling of revenge, stimulating hate speech and segregation”, warns the psychiatrist.

You have to be safe, yes. But it takes much more

Faced with events like these, it is legitimate for immediate concern to emerge about what can be done for the safety of the little ones, but land work cannot be forgotten; On the contrary – the main factor is revealed: providing the population with effective and concrete mental health conditions, in an exercise that begins in childhood.

“Safety is fundamental. But I think it all starts with orientation. Education must be thought of better in society, as well as investments in mental health”, underlines the psychoanalyst Andrea Ladislau, who also draws attention to the issue of The Internet in all this work. “Networks download countless movies, information, news, documentaries, among others, with a lot of content considered dangerous, mainly for individuals who already have a tendency to develop some sort of mental illness focused on violent and empathy-less behavior. This is why we need to be careful of what is disclosed and consumed by children and young people “, she warns.

Let us remember that the perpetrators of attacks such as those we have seen most frequently in recent times in the country were also, one day, children. that way, think of them as “monsters” removes human responsibility and the possibilities to prevent similar events from happening in the future. Not only are they human, but they are the result of a variety of social, cultural, economic and other factors – a context in which mental health could (and should) be worked on.

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“What we are witnessing is a generalized catastrophe”

“Mental health needs to be more valued to help control and manage disordered emotions and feelings, especially as not everyone has maturity, poise and mature development to the point of understand or even discern what is real from what is fiction”Andrew points out.

It is important to underline this it is not, in any way, a question of diminishing the responsibility for the crimesbut to find possible ways to prevent them from happening again in the future.

Source: Terra

Ben

Ben Stock is a lifestyle journalist and author at Gossipify. He writes about topics such as health, wellness, travel, food and home decor. He provides practical advice and inspiration to improve well-being, keeps readers up to date with latest lifestyle news and trends, known for his engaging writing style, in-depth analysis and unique perspectives.