Mental health in conflict: What happened to Chileans?

The psychologist Gabriel Urzúa, director of Advance Psychology, analyzes the psychosocial factors that would be generating changes in mental health among Chileans that manifests itself through extreme violent reactions.

The social outbreak of October 2019, the pandemic and the economic crisis… there have been several situations that have affected the mental health of the population and have caused Chilean society to find itself immersed in a pressure cooker that makes every certain time explodes or seeks escape routes, which is manifested through aggressiveness, low tolerance, stress, anxiety and violence.

There are several examples, such as the mob at the Daddy Yankee concert, in which thousands of people entered by force, or the university classic that had to be suspended due to the attacks with flares from the fans. Conflicts between motorists have also increased, while school violence has reached unprecedented levels.

But what is hidden behind the violence? for the psychologist Gabriel Urzuaexpert in community psychology and director of Advanced Psychology on the San Sebastian University, violent behaviors not only refer to psycho-biological factors, but are closely related to the social, historical and cultural context. “People are the faces of the same coin, as long as we are individual and society”, he points out.

According to the psychologist, it is relevant to understand society in order to understand the behavior of the subjects that inhabit it. “Our society is highly individualistic and competitive, where consumerism has achieved the belief that whoever has more is worth more” and the “culture of winner”: the one who hoards, skips the line or overtakes by the berm. “These micro behaviors account for how human beings function in society,” warns Urzúa.

The academic adds that there are certain values ​​that have been disrupted in our country: the social bond that allows understanding the perspective of the other has been lostand issues as simple as saying hello to the neighbor today appear blurred, which begins to exacerbate certain conflicting attitudes and behaviors.

On the other hand there is a cultural vacuum, “a gap in citizen education issues that is disturbing compared to past decades, and that has led people to act thoughtlessly.” All this would make us see daily behaviors that are outside the social norm; that rule associated with good treatment, respect for the other, mutual aid and reciprocity.

However, Urzúa points out that society cannot be exclusively held responsible for violence and lack of impulse control, that give rise to situations of extreme violence. For example, we can all get angry in the car, but that’s not why you don’t get out and hit the driver next to you with a combo. “The lack of control of impulses is due to certain biochemical elements, we all have different drives or ways of reacting,” he asserts.

Circumstances also influence the way people react to stimuli. “We inhabit the world of excessive work, in which those who work more hours and see their family less are still the best evaluated. Chile advances at a snail’s pace in conciliation; these elements, for our mental health, are a source of discomfort that is incubating in a very underground way, ”says Urzúa.

Integral wellness

“People have anger, for different reasons, which is channeled with very few healthy outlets in our country,” he warns. “There is little time to carry out activities that make it possible to address mental health in a comprehensive manner, because Well-being is not only the absence of disease, but a series of things that I must attend to about myself”. Urzúa points out that advancing towards a comprehensive welfare state can go hand in hand, for example, sports, art, and spending more time with the family.

At once, one of the fundamental tools to achieve healthy states of mental health that are maintained over time is psychotherapy. “It’s taking care of my problems. Perhaps for a long time I was unable to talk to anyone about my personal issues. This tool must be accessible to everyone, an issue that unfortunately does not happen today and continues to be the privilege of a few”.

For the psychologist, mental health must be addressed more seriously through public policies where guarantees can be demanded for the entire population. “Mental health is a very precious asset that is even directly related to economic development. A healthy society in terms of mental health is a society that will produce more and better”, says Urzúa.

If there are no important changes in the short or medium term, our social relations will be increasingly degraded. “There is less and less respect, and when a society loses respect for itself, it also loses respect for its citizens and institutions. In this sense, indeed, we are moving towards a complex place ”, she concludes.