Psychosocial Pandemics, Part 2: Psychological immunity to mind-viruses
In Part 1 of this series, Modern psychotherapy and its misconceptions about systems theory, I examined social and psychological issues that lay a foundation for this next topic. I found that necessary because the field of psychology as it is currently practiced and preached by many tends to be so focused at the individual level, and so naive about how systems actually operate, that it fails to address mental illness at the population level. But that’s where we have to look in order to understand a prime contributor to poor mental health outcomes: mind-viruses.
Health does not occur in a vacuum; nothing does. Humans live in families, tribes, societies. The globalizing force of the internet renders us one unified field without any of the barriers between populations that kept the mental viruses of previous generations contained within a given people. This allows for mind-viruses to reach pandemic levels, and I believe that is what we are seeing today. Add to the mixture the various factors that weaken our psychological immune systems, which I will examine below, and we have a disaster on our hands.
In addressing the concepts of mind viruses and psychological immunity, I will draw upon physiology as a metaphor for psychology.
The immune system’s role is to keep us healthy by accurately distinguishing between self and not-self, healthy and unhealthy, so that we can take care of ourselves; take in what is good for us, including certain benevolent substances and symbiotic microorganisms; distinguish those friendly foreigners from entities that could harm us; and defend ourselves from the latter.
The immune system can malfunction in a number of ways, which, according to my lay understanding, generally boil down to under-reacting or overreacting. An under-reactive immune system fails to adequately fight off disease-causing agents, while an over-reactive immune system attacks itself, as we see in autoimmune disorders. I’m no doctor, but I’ll guess that an immune system busy attacking itself also has fewer defense resources to direct toward its real enemies, or a flawed mechanism by which to recognize them.
To do its job properly, the immune system must know when to act and when to relax; what belongs, and what doesn’t belong. It also must have the right tools for the job. It is my understanding that this is how vaccines work. By introducing a small, inert dose of an invader, the immune system is given a chance to learn to recognize the invader and develop shields and weapons that appropriately target that specific enemy. This is also why contagious illnesses have the most devastating impacts when introduced to populations that have never encountered anything similar. Think: the decimation of many indigenous American tribes, not through battle, but through diseases such as smallpox for which their New World immune systems had no prior template, while European settlers had been fighting off these illnesses for generations and so had a competitive advantage.
(I’m no scientist, doctor or historian, just a curious generalist offering my best approximation of my current understanding; if you have more expertise than me on these matters and want to correct anything written here, please feel free to do so in the comments below.)
Other factors that can influence the relative strength of the immune system include genetics, nutrition, exercise, lifestyle, sleep, and stress. Lacking vital nutrients such as vitamins C, D, or zinc can leave the immune system under-resourced. So, too, can lack of sleep or chronically high levels of stress. In general, a body that is properly cleansed, well rested, nourished, and strengthened by exercise is better defended from illness than one that is fatigued, depleted, and weak.
And of course, since germ theory was introduced, we have known that hygiene plays an important role in protecting ourselves from illness. Hand-washing saves lives. However, there is an argument to be made that too-sterile environments prevent our bodies from acclimating to small doses of pathogens; antibiotics facilitate the evolution of superbugs; and lack of exposure to dirt leaves children’s microbiomes lacking in the biodiversity that creates resilience. I’m not a doctor. As far as I know, this is a complex conversation for the experts, and the jury is still out on many of its elements. Fortunately, certainty on this matter is not central to the point of this essay. So let’s zoom back out. We’re talking about the immune system.
Now let’s talk about viruses, again with my lay perspective that is open to correction. Viruses replicate exponentially, but they are not living organisms. Their exponential replication happens at two levels. One level occurs inside the host, using bacteria and other cells to reproduce, at the expense of those cells and therefore the health of the host as well. The other is at the level of population, as viruses spread between hosts. Virus behavior is generally more parasitic than lethal, usually leaving their hosts depleted but alive, as this makes it easier for the hosts to continue to spread the virus. Because reproduction is exponential and viruses can be passed through air, surfaces, or both, a virus will eventually spread to all members of a population that are in contact with one another, stopping only at the boundary where that population ceases to make contact with any other populations.
Of the members of the population who have been in proximity with the virus — which again will eventually be all members — severity of infection will vary on an individual level according to the factors described above. How quickly and powerfully will a given immune system react to protect the individual from symptomatic illness? That depends on the individual’s age, general health status, genetics, any pre-existing immune conditions or comorbidities the body may also be fighting off, nutrition, fitness, lifestyle, sleep quality and quantity, and stress levels. Of course, last but not least, any previous exposure to this pathogen, a similar pathogen, or an appropriate vaccine (i.e., inoculation), will affect how quickly and accurately the individual’s immune system will be able to recognize the invader and bring an appropriate arsenal of shields and weapons to defeat it.
Okay, okay, but where am I going with this and what does it have to do with psychology? Well, basically, everything. It’s a perfect metaphor for how mind-viruses and the psychological immune system work.
It is unclear whether anyone can accurately pinpoint where any given mind virus might have originated. What is easier to pinpoint is how they operate once in existence, and what renders organisms susceptible to infection.
Mind-viruses are not living organisms in and of themselves. They become lifelike and spread by taking over healthy cells in their hosts. That is, they take up energy that would have been spent keeping things running smoothly, so the overall mental health of the individual deteriorates, though they may not be aware of this as it happens, or, if they are aware, they may not recognize that it is due to the virus. The energy a healthy individual would have invested into his health, wealth, happiness, and self-actualization — all of which would normally come back around to support his continued wellbeing — is instead taken up replicating a lifeless (dare we say soulless, godless?) facsimile of an entity that does not care about him and operates with the exclusive goal of making more of itself. Naturally this leads to imbalance and unhealth in the individual’s psyche, or at least to psychological fatigue, and thus, depression.
Once a host has been infected, he host will participate in spreading the virus to other members of the population until it has infected every vulnerable member of the population, while invulnerable members will have been exposed but fought off the infection before it had a chance to become symptomatic. This is what we are seeing in society with our current mind-viruses: we have all been exposed, but some of us have greater immunity than others.
Of those of us who are immune to a given mind-virus, some of us protect our health by staying away from the sick, while others, such as myself, operate more like first responders. We gear up with our psychological PPE and get to work trying to help others, hoping we don’t get infected. Unfortunately, one of the symptoms of illness is that the immune system becomes hijacked, not only so that it fails to recognize the virus as an unwelcome invader, but also so that it treats would-be antivirals as invaders. The virus protects itself and its ability to reproduce by making its host perceive anything that threatens the virus as a threat to the host. So when unwittingly infected hosts are approached by first responders, they often react as if it is the responders who are attacking them. It’s almost like rabies. In such conditions, it is difficult not to get injured as a first responder. This is part of what makes it so hard to defeat these viruses. There’s a battle at the front lines, and people get taken down quickly. At the moment, I am nursing some wounds, but I will get back out there eventually.
So what makes for psychological immunity? The metaphor holds. The same factors that make for a robust physical immune system also make for a robust psychological one. Let’s continue.
Let’s start with nourishment. Genuine psychological nourishment derives from good physical nutrition in combination with healthy relationships, meaningful endeavors, enjoyable hobbies, and other sources of deeply satisfying fulfillment. So, too, mental nourishment means feeding yourself the right mind-diet, avoiding junk media and instead consuming quality literature, research, interviews, documentaries, and other forms of thoughtful education. In contrast, psychological malnutrition that leaves a hunger for love, meaning, identity, belonging, knowledge, or safety can weaken our mental defenses and leave us vulnerable to infections.
Next comes rest. The mind needs adequate rest in order to function properly. Physically, sleep is important for brain health. Metaphorically, taking breaks from work, technology, social media, and certain social influences, allows the mind to rest and re-center. Meditation, journaling, psychotherapy, and other practices allow the mind to settle, zoom out, integrate, recover, and reflect. Let’s include stress management in this category, as there is a lot of overlap.
Psychological fitness matters too. Just as exercise strengthens our physical immune system, a robust mind is one that works out daily, so to speak. When we always opt for ease, convenience, and comfort, we don’t want to face challenges. Junk food, junk sex (porn), junk media, junk tv, junk TikTok, junk thinking — these all hit the pleasure button temporarily, giving routine little dopamine bursts, but they do nothing to build real mental strength. Building real mental strength takes work. Sometimes it can feel like lifting weights. You will know you’re doing it when you feel resistance, that “ugh, I don’t want to.” When you call on your brain skills, and wear yourself out after a few hours of concentration. I’m talking actual critical thinking here, not what someone with an agenda sells as “critical thinking” that you swallow unquestioningly. I’m talking doing what’s right, not what’s expedient. Sometimes that means tolerating the distressing realization that you need to let go of a cherished belief or group affiliation because you have carefully examined it and found a fatal flaw. Building psychological strength requires calling on your courage to face a mental challenge that you may not want to face, or may not even anticipate until it emerges along your path. If nourishment is about what you feed your brain, exercise is about how you put it to the test, integrate and practice your skills through writing, intellectual conversations, and other applications. Similarly, practicing real-world skills through labor, employment, or hobbies can build genuine confidence, another important component of immunity.
So a person with satisfying relationships and endeavors; genuine self-esteem rooted in lived competence; a healthy mind-diet of quality inputs; adequate rest; and a mind trained in critical thinking, is better prepared to fight off infection from mind-viruses than someone who is weak and depleted in these ways.
Next, we can add the immune-boosting factor of acquired immunity. A person who has previously been infected with a similar mind-virus and learned to fight it off — or who has witnessed and supported a loved one doing the same — will be better equipped to recognize and defend herself from a new virus. Studying history, sociology, or psychology can likewise serve as inoculation, helping one learn how to recognize problems in the making without personally getting infected with an active disease agent. But many have been more than vaccinated; they have suffered full-blown illnesses and learned the hard way. I have written before about how previous experiences leaving cults and abusive relationships better prepared me for defending myself from present day mind-viruses. Perhaps you can relate.
Along these lines, we might also consider how raising youth in overly sterile environments prevents them from exposure to the elements that strengthen the system, and renders their metaphorical microbiota lacking in diversity. What do I mean by this? I mean that modernity’s approach to keeping children “safe” at all costs, while arising from healthy parental instincts, prevents them from having the life experiences that build resilience, and fails to expose them to the diversity of opinions that is necessary in order to be able to tolerate different viewpoints, see from other perspectives, and form robust opinions of their own that can stand the tests of time, experience, and the elements.
So, how is your immunity? What natural and acquired factors bolster it? Where might your defenses be weak? What causes that vulnerability, and how can you take better care of your needs so that you are mentally healthy and robust?
I hope that this has been an enjoyable and enlightening read. I look forward to hearing your thoughts in the comments.
