|
Abstract:
This
article focuses on applications of the colour-blind western-oriented work of
the famous psychologists Lazarus and Folkman (1966; 1984) on coping and stress.
This is done by taking a closer look at different fields of application such as
traumatic events and serious crimes.
This
exercise yields some preliminary conclusions. Firstly, more tailor-made process
research into ‘types’ of stressful life events and how to deal with them is
desirable. This article contains an example of this, namely traumatic events
and serious crimes. My assumption is that serious crime (Steinmetz, 1990)
creates a distorted view of the victim’s self, the victim experience and the
environment. A second important lesson is that it is far from desirable to rely
on one's own strength or resources, on that of family and friends and on victim
support (secondary appraisal). The main cause is that western governments and
institutions do not serve people with worries and suffering; in fact, They even
backfire because governments and institutions distrust citizens.
Furthermore,
this article looked at the contribution of positive psychology to coping and
stress. The good news is that people can also learn from miserable experiences
and benefit from them for the rest of their lives. Secondly, from this critical
position, we examined how coping and stress manifest in collectivist
non-Western countries. In the collectivised non-Western world, the human being
and her/his gestalt try to find balance through coping and stress. That balance
has to be seen from the perspective of the interdependence of a person with
his/her extended family, ancestors, gods and spirits, earth and cosmos. This
has implications for what Lazarus and Folkman (1966 and 1984) call primary and
secondary appraisal. Finally, a look at neurology was also taken, with the core
question of whether neurology provides support for the process-oriented coping
models of Lazarus and Folkman. The outcome is yes, for primary appraisal, with
the caveat that the area for visual images in the brain lights up and the
speech centre is switched off. After all, victims of severe traumatic events
relive the images of when the severe trauma occurred and often have no words
for what exactly happened at the core of the traumatic experience.
|
