We live in a catastrophic age.
I’m not saying its “the end of times” or that we are “on the precipice of destruction.”
I am saying
some (and possibly many) people in the United States (and worldwide) feel uneasy about current affairs.
How do you know?
I don’t…BUT…
Because I’ve interacted with nearly 800 people—one or more times—during almost a decade of practice (and through COVID-19),
I’ve noticed subtle but worrying changes in why people come in for treatment and what they talk about.
World/national/community issues rarely enter the therapy office.
There are, however, times when this happens.
“The Pandemic.”
Today’s angst is not at the fear, dread, or sheer terror I felt or that clients conveyed to me during the pandemic years
but generalized fear is RISING.
It’s mostly in politics, but it is unknown whether political issues (or political figures) are at its root.
When I started full-time therapy in 2016, I would NOT have listed “politics” as a therapy concern.
Nor would I have listed a viral pandemic.
In 2016, therapy topics were loneliness, loss, confusion, depression, psychosis, psychopathology, anxiety, panic attacks, relationship dysfunction, and so on.
I saw people only in person.
In 2025, it is loneliness, fear of the future, politics, hatred of self and others, psychosis, psychopathology, disappointment in self and the world, self-estrangement, Long COVID, relationship dysfunction, etc.
I now see people via tele-video and in person.
Between 2019 and 2021, pandemic fears were omnipresent.
Today:
Politics is the expressed concern.
Mostly, it’s embedded in a POV of:
a dysphoric world of polarization fueled, in part, by anger and, to a lesser extent, rage and fear,
politics today is interpersonal and “intra-personal.”
It exacerbates anxious states, deepens depressive symptoms, inflames paranoia and distrust, is a source of paranoid delusions (beyond simply “the FBI is chasing me…”), and can dominate a therapy session.
Politics has turned from nuisance impersonal to damaging personal.
“Them against Us.”
“It’s no longer about me; we want to discuss ‘them and us.’”
Some say it’s about malicious actions by political evildoers.
Or, from the countervailing side, radical, and need-actions by a chosen political few to make life better and more prosperous for everyone in the United States of America,
America First! Draining the Swamp!
Whether it is racial or radical minorities (or majorities), Christian/Muslim fundamentalists or atheists, disabled persons, males/females or other gendered children or adults, rural or urban regions, political parties or religious ideology, or immigrants (illegal or otherwise),
political actions (and their consequences) are impacting people’s lives.
Are we witnessing the garden-variety American business model applied to politics?
Or Is this a widespread conspiracy that has exceeded its clandestine threshold?
Or Is it a needed sweeping revisionist change decried by those who voted for our current administration? We must DRAIN THE SWAMP!
No one knows what’s happening in Washington, DC, and little trustworthy information exists. Governmental processes are becoming more OPAQUE than I’ve ever seen them in my life.
Is this for good or evil?
I’m wrapped up in it, too, with my opinions and proclivities about who is leading and what, how it is happening, and where I think we are headed.
I don’t know either.
What I see is a large organic wave of growing public anxiety.
Am I overreacting?
Am I biased?
Am I prematurely worried?
What is Political Anxiety?
It is an extension of the term: “Anxiety.”
Unlike anxiety, in general, or: “apprehensive uneasiness or nervousness that stems from the anticipation of danger, which can be internal or external,”
“political anxiety” does not appear in the Merriam-Webster dictionary. Instead, it is defined generically as:
“…stress, worry, and fear individuals experience due to political events, news, or current affairs…”
(Test Yourself)
THE POLITICAL ANXIETY BATTERY
Instructions: Below is a list of political circumstances, statements, or viewpoints. Read each one, then “rate (or circle) on a 1 to 10 scale below “how much anxiety” each of the following gives you:
The election of a disliked candidate or political party.
1(none) 2 3 4 5(some) 6 7 8 9 10 (a great deal)
The level of polarization and conflict in the current political climate.
1(none) 2 3 4 5(some) 6 7 8 9 10 (a great deal)
That the American public is insufficiently informed about politics.
1(none) 2 3 4 5(some) 6 7 8 9 10 (a great deal)
That you care too much about politics.
1(none) 2 3 4 5(some) 6 7 8 9 10 (a great deal)
That you are insufficiently informed about politics.
1(none) 2 3 4 5(some) 6 7 8 9 10 (a great deal)
The poor quality of political leaders/candidates.
1(none) 2 3 4 5(some) 6 7 8 9 10 (a great deal)
The uncivil nature of modern politics.
1(none) 2 3 4 5(some) 6 7 8 9 10 (a great deal)
The extent to which ordinary people are disinterested in politics.
1(none) 2 3 4 5(some) 6 7 8 9 10 (a great deal)
Scoring:
Total your item scores. Divide the total score by 8.
This is your Political Anxiety Score.
If your score is below 5.0, you are likely unbothered by (or don’t care about) political events around you.
If your score is between 5.1 and 6.5, you may be experiencing “political anxiety,” including unease that you may or may not share with others.
If you are above 6.5, you are experiencing moderate to substantial “political anxiety.” This likely impacts where, with whom, and how you relate to others.
The POLITICAL ANXIETY BATTERY has been administered to multiple groups, including a small 2020 national and a small 2020 post-election national sample. Recently, it was part of a university-sponsored survey in Green Bay, Wisconsin, between October 16 and 21, 2023, where 436 people took the survey, primarily online.
I’ve generated a simplified Bar Chart below to summarize the (mean scores) for each question from each administration event, 2020a, 2020b, and 2023.
INTERPRETATION: The means are “U” shaped, down from 2020a to 2020b, up in 2023, and higher overall in 2023 (these are not the same people measured from year to year, so assessing change is not possible). The biggest jumps - from 2020 to 2023 - are for the questions about the election of a disliked candidate/party and the level of polarization and conflict.
The last column in the bar graph lists scores from a generalized anxiety score using four questions from the Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale (GAD). These GAD items and the Political Anxiety Battery were administered together.
It’s difficult to draw many conclusions from the data, but they illustrate that political anxiety or “intra-personal turbulence” seems more evident in 2023 than in 2020.
(You can stop here if you’ve had enough of this topic)
RETURNING TO CATASTROPHE
We all recently lived through a “Catastrophe.”
Many died in its wake.
What was the Personal Catastrophe?
COVID-19
Everyone reading this blog knows someone who caught COVID-19.
Many know someone who died from it.
Many readers contracted COVID-19 (or its variants) 1 (or more) times.
COVID-19 is still around!
But, no longer catastrophic.
WHY?
We’ve gotten used to it.
Getting used to COVID-19 is just like getting used to another catastrophic phenomenon that hasn’t gone away, the United States Opioid Epidemic Catastrophe, which has killed, through 2024, 725K persons’ (maybe more).
Soon, you will forget about COVID-19 (if you haven’t already done so), just like you’ve forgotten about the Spanish Flu of 1918, and don’t think too much about the Opioid Epidemic.
It sent me packing via ambulance to the Emergency Room.
I assumed I was dying; I wasn’t panicking because I was too high on paramedic-injected fentanyl, but I figured I was dead. It felt like it! The recovery was long and arduous.
I was on PAXLOVID, and to this day, I can’t figure out if my current fatigue is due to: A: Aging, B: Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma (or Chemotherapy), or C: Some form of Long COVID, undiagnosed.
Catastrophe Defined
(Merriam-Webster): 1a: a momentous tragic event ranging from extreme misfortune to utter overthrow or ruin. 2a: utter failure (Fiasco) 3a: a violent and sudden change in a feature of the earth; b: a violent, usually destructive natural event (such as a supernova) 4: the final event of the dramatic action, especially of a tragedy.
The American Psychological Association Dictionary does not define “Catastrophe” per se.
Instead, it describes “Catastrophe Theory.”
In particular, Catastrophe Theory based on the CUSP catastrophe model of anxiety and task performance. Note: CUSP does not stand for anything specific. It simply describes a shape or a “cusp.” CUSP is an influential, mathematically derived, evidence-based psychological theory of individual and group function in catastrophe.
CUSP proposes that under conditions of high anxiety, as physiological arousal increases, performance will increase to a certain point.
Past this point, a catastrophic drop in performance occurs (the backward undercurrent of the cusp, which is non-linear in shape—an ocean waveform at the point of breaking). A substantial lowering of physiological arousal is necessary to regain a manageable level of function once the CUSP threshold is exceeded.
This is why benzodiazepines (that act as central nervous system depressants) work so well for treating panic attacks.
As depicted above, CUSP progresses "wavelike.” That’s how catastrophes work in humans: a “breaking wave of broad decomposition.”
The break (itself - or the exceeded cusp threshold) is cataclysmic decompensation with forward force embedded in random (within-event) action, which might be modeled as the “white foam” of an ocean wave destroying everything in its path. CATACLYSMIC TURBULENCE! Anyone who has had a panic attack understands the cataclysmic decompensation phenomenon.
Think of the Tsunami, a quintessential catastrophic force.
A “psychotic break,” or a “nervous breakdown,” is not immediate but CUSP-like in its progression (it has been modeled as such), as a “wave of turbulent decompensation overcoming one’s sense of reality and normality” with a cataclysmic consequence (or end-state) which is generally total intrapersonal decompensation.
CUSP is a PSYCHOLOGICALLY MODELED CATASTROPHE THEORY.
The picture below is CUSP underway in an animal Fight-or-flight response. CUSP has also been used to model catastrophic prison riots with some success.
CUSP lends itself to often overlooked catastrophes as these are underway, particularly “intrapersonal” catastrophes that have a characteristic presentation pathway with clients who experience panic attacks or what most people might call “nervous breakdowns.”
How Can I Approach a Catastrophe?
There are four steps or actions (informed by CUSP) when contemplating a catastrophe.
These are the same whether the disaster is personal or global. The wildfires in California were a catastrophe in another State,
but every person living in Utah who watched these unfold was wondering,
“Will this happen to me next?”
This is the first phase of CUSP - (awareness of catastrophe likelihood).
Our current situation begins with a seeming pandemonium-like situation within a critical national infrastructure.
Pandemonium is a word I borrowed from Milton’s Paradise Lost) which “literally” means: "a wild uproar" or "utter chaos."
The consequence of this seeming pandemonium in Washington, DC can be the beginning of an essential infrastructure breakdown.
(or it can be something else, like a massive revisionist intervention with an extensive strategic change process underway).
In this case, the infrastructure is seemingly far away in Washington, DC (think of the Wildfires in CA). Still, its effects resonate throughout the United States and are felt locally and personally.
According to CUSP, the breakdown (or The Wave) will move and expand quickly.
“Are you sure about this?”
I’m fairly certain about the model but unsure about the growing body of evidence suggesting that CUSP might be used to model what’s happening right now in Washington, DC.
From a quick web search, I note multiple Washington DC National Agency pages are no longer active. Examples include USAID, US CENSUS BUREA, OFFICE of PERSONNEL and MANAGEMENT, CDC, etc.
Do you think I should be alarmed?
This preliminary question usually precedes the second step in the CUSP process.
“Gathering information about the phenomenon and its possible imminence and any meaning I can discern from it.”
Note: Once a CUSP wave breaks, you can only respond to it (decomposition); no one can stop it until it runs its catastrophic/cataclysmic course.
This is true for individuals (think panic attacks), groups, communities, and nations.
It is the same whether it is nature-generated (Wildfires in CA) or human-caused (Ukraine War if you lived in Ukraine).
Is the Wave Building?
Again, I’m unsure, but I am starting to (1) pay attention and (2) gather information, so I am at Step 2 heading for Step 3.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, we all watched on television as the news broke of an international pandemic that seemed confined to Wuhan, China - that’s a long way off.
HOWEVER,
the virus jumped across the ocean with small, uncertain indications of being detected in Washington State, Washington DC, and NYC. Again, this was all very far from Utah.
At that time, Did you think a threat was apparent?
The threat was apparent to others at that time. According to CUSP, the COVID-19 migration and expansion process would fit within a catastrophe model's early stages (or steps).
There are two additional CUSP stages that I’ve NOT described.
These are the preliminary ACTION steps. If I generate enough readers to warrant it, I will develop them in a follow-up blog entry.
Do you think a Catastrophe is Coming?
I’m NOT SURE, it’s TOO EARLY TO TELL, BUT SIGNS ARE WORRYING.
I don’t think we are in an active catastrophic event now, and I don’t believe this is “the end of times.”
Our country is moving into unknown territory, some of which could be understood with careful study of U.S. Political History.
It is more difficult for me to predict the future today than it was a year ago.
