Grappling with the Gulf oil disaster

Angry or depressed about the Gulf oil disaster? You’re not alone. Deborah Du Nann Winter, PhD, Professor of Psychology at Whitman College, says the emotional impacts of this massive environmental disaster are widespread.

Dr. Du Nann Winter witnessed a wide variety of emotional reactions to the Deepwater Horizon crisis, the most striking  in her opinion being anger – toward BP’s failure to adhere to regulations and cutting corners on safety precautions, and toward President Obama for his apparent lack of anger.

“But I think all that anger projected toward the oil companies and toward the President is a way of masking the really unfathomable and profound despair that is just under the surface as we watch this catastrophe unfold,” she said. 

Also, “It really isn’t appropriate to blame BP or the President for the fact that we are rapidly approaching the end of cheap oil, and these kinds of disasters are accumulating all over the world. Blaming individuals by demonizing them is simply not a very good problem-solving mechanism for coping with feelings. Some more effective reactions would be to rethink our relationship with oil.”

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