“Men ought to know that from nothing else but the brain come joys, delights, laughter and sports, and sorrows, griefs, despondency, and lamentations” — Hippocrates

THE message from the patient was distressing. She wanted an urgent appointment as she could not stop crying, thinking about the victims of the Gul Plaza fire in Karachi. She said she felt dep­r­e­s­­sed and had feelings of hopelessness. More worryingly, she was getting frequent thoughts of suicide as the images of the fire-ravaged building kept playing in her mind. What the lady was exhibiting was ‘vicarious trauma’ — trauma experienced not directly through a traumatic event, but by witnessing, hearing about, reading or seeing images of traumatic events repeatedly. Origi­nally identified in professionals exposed to others’ suffering — such as therapists, first responders and humanitarian workers — vicarious trauma occurs when individuals absorb the emotional and psychological toll of traumatic events indirectly.

The Gul Plaza fire tragedy is only one of many such events we’ve been exposed to regularly. Over the last two years, we witnessed the genocide in Gaza, which has now been overtaken by the conflict in the Middle East. Images coming out of Gaza and Tehran have been nothing short of apocalyptic, including those from the Minab bombing in Iran in which at least 160 schoolgirls were killed. These, along with events in Pakistan, are leaving deep scars on the collective psyche.

In today’s age of instant communication, almost everyone is exposed to images and narratives of suffering. At the population level, the psychological........

© Dawn