How to overcome being benumbed as war rages on?

I use the term “anaesthesia” to describe a state of detachment, numbing and psychological distancing among people in the face of a crisis

MUMBAI: I have been working with clients across countries over the last few years – they include in-person therapy and conducting trainings designed to help people navigate anxiety. During one such session with a client from a war-afflicted country, both of us considered how many of the concerns we discuss in therapy seem inconsequential amidst war. The awareness of death, for example, changes when we view it through the lens of what truly matters and what we need to stop worrying about.

Representational image. (Pexels)

Through our session, we realised how one part of the world struggles minute by minute, hypervigilant amidst missile interceptions and loud nighttime sounds, while a large section operates as if anesthetized to these events. This mass anaesthesia is troubling and I wonder if it serves a purpose for those who have consciously or unconsciously fallen for it.

I use the term “anaesthesia” to describe a state of detachment, numbing and psychological distancing among people in the face of a crisis that has catastrophic consequences. Is there a breakdown in our ecosystems, society and communities at a deeper, more humane level?

We are concerned by individual needs and pleasures, forgetting what it means to coexist in a world, not considering that every death’s ripple effect will be felt on the lives around us and in the world we leave behind for future generations.

This pattern of operating in selfish ways is leading to a decline in the values such as compassion and empathy - the very qualities that make us humane. Our capacity to feel others’ grief and loss -- even if we don’t know them or have never met them—is at the core of our humanity. But today it seems as though we have become so anesthetised that the very foundation of our humanity is beginning to fracture.

We witnessed a similar psychological and moral numbing in the COVID years. Once again we are at a place where ‘Compassion Fade’ seems to coexist with the numbing. ‘Compassion Fade’ is a term coined by Paul Slovic, a psychologist who worked on decision-making. His work indicates that our capacity for empathy and compassion-driven action diminishes as the number of people who need help increases as compared to a single person in need. His work suggested that people are more likely to help when a single person is identified with a name and a background, compared to a situation of mass suffering and anonymity. This is reflected in Slovic’s experiments, which showed a drop or plateauing effect in donations when victims increased from one identifiable person to many.

The paradox where increased suffering leads to decreased help feels heart-breaking; one of the explanations being that people feel there is not much they can change when the scale of suffering magnifies, resulting in collapse of compassion.

One of our biggest responsibilities is watching out for our tendency towards cognitive biases when taking action. As we begin to recognize numbing as a defence mechanism born of overwhelm, we can learn to embrace and acknowledge that the suffering of people we do not know, even those far away, will impact us. The key to addressing ‘Compassion Fade’ lies in resisting the tendency to reduce suffering to mere statistics and numbers.

In an event of mass death, publications are known to publish a list of names, detailing the victims’ ages and accompanying information. This elicits compassion and helps us relate to those who died in a humane way. Even when helplessness and being overwhelmed feel heavy, we need not run from them; instead, we can transform them into small, mindful actions that serve as a starting point for change.

Consuming the news in small doses can also serve as an antidote to the feeling of numbness.

We need to remember what Susan Sontag said in her book ‘Regarding the Pain of Others.’ She beautifully reminds us, “Compassion is an unstable emotion. It needs to be translated into action, or it withers.”