As the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 was being discussed on the SOAR message board and Facebook page, I didn't initially realize why it was causing so much distress.
It is about the total and absolute disconnect. Avoid a void that
allows nothing. I didn't get it until someone asked about a data link
that—if it is done by satellite—provides connection no matter where the
plane is. Suddenly I realized that what is bothering so many people is
that there is nothing, no explanation, no clues, no radio transmission,
no sign of the plane's crash site, nothing. There is just a complete
void of connection. Even an explanation would be a sort of connection
with the people who are lost. Since there is no scenario of how they met
their end, it is as if they stopped existing in a more non-existent way
than if we knew how it happened. This total and absolute disconnect is
troubling, and I believe it is troubling because it resonates with the
disconnect we felt as little kids.
Strictly speaking, fear is about something specific, and anxiety
is about the unknown. The unknown is so hard to tolerate that we try to
transform it into something "known." If we have a definable target we
can do something about it. Doing something is one of the ways we relieve
anxiety. We can avoid it, fight it, or escape from it. Otherwise, there
is nothing we can do; we can't avoid, fight, or escape the unknown.
In
most crashes, the news tells us what happened and in a day or so,
unless the crash involved someone we knew, the event becomes old news.
This case is different: A plane disappeared. We think, This can't happen. A plane can't just disappear.
We can't accept the complete disconnect caused by the information void.
Why is it so disturbing? It resonates with times as a child when
something went terribly wrong and there was a complete disconnect
between us and the people we needed and depended upon.
For a child, a complete disconnect is too awful to endure, so he or she shuts down. James Masterson, called this abandonment depression.
We are born to connect. At birth, there is an urge to connect with the
breast, and to feel the connection of being held. This expands to an
urge to connect psychologically, to be recognized as a real person, and
to be responded to by others.
Since self-to-self interaction is so
basic to our feelings of security, we build within the mind replicas of
those who are vital to us. Then, when they are not present physically,
they can still be present inside us psychologically. These internal
replicas allow us to maintain a sense of connection—and thus
security—even when they are away. But when a child tries to rely upon
people who are unpredictable, it is impossible to build internal
replicas adequate to prevent distress when the person is away. The child
cannot feel secure when alone.
Fast forward to the present: Here
we are, as adults, still needing to avoid feelings of disconnection. But
without adequate internal replicas, distress is triggered by the
disconnection of this disappearance. This creates a demand for so-called
experts who we call upon to spin theories in thin air. What is the
harm? Speculation about how Air France Flight 447 from Rio to Paris was
lost in 2009 led to the formation of a myth about what happened to the
plane that was every fearful flier's worst nightmare: A plane far out
over the ocean, away from any land, hit terrible unexpected turbulence,
and "fell out of the sky" at night, into the ocean.
That's not
what happened, we've since learned, but I still get emails and calls
from people who tell me that the loss of the Air France flight is the
cause of their fear of flying. We can thank the media for that. The
speculation offered some sense of connection, but if it fit a person's
worst fears, then the cure the media offered to deal with the unknown
was worse than the disease.
The Boeing 777
has flown 18 years with no fatalities, other than a 2013 crash landing
in San Francisco which was determined to be caused by crew (and management)
incompetence, not an issue with the plane. One crash in 18 years of
flying is a great safety record. Rationally, such a record should be
reassuring. But it isn't. Cognitively, we require absolute safety to get
rid of our anxiety. Since absolute safety does not exist, cognition cannot solve the problem. Fortunately, relationship can. We need to establish suitable internal replicas.
Love,
Abby
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