People who narrowly avoid disaster do not necessarily escape tragedy unharmed, and their knowledge of the victims' fate shapes how survivors respond to traumatic events, according to the results of a new paper by a University at Buffalo psychologist that explores the effects of near-miss experiences associated with the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

In those split seconds when people witness others in distress, neural pathways in the brain support the drive to help through facets of imagination that allow people to see the episode as it unfolds and envision how to aid those in need, according to a team of Boston College researchers. The underlying process at work is referred to as episodic simulation, essentially the ability of individuals to re-organize memories from the past

A new survey conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health during the COVID-19 pandemic found a more-than-threefold increase in the percentage of U.S. adults who reported symptoms of psychological distress -- from 3.9 percent in 2018 to 13.6 percent in April 2020. The percentage of adults ages 18-29 in the U.S. who reported psychological distress increased from 3.7 percent in 2018 to 24 percent in 2020. The survey, fielded online April 7 to April 13, found that 19.3 percent of adults with annual household incomes less than $35,000 reported psychological distress

My question is about anticipatory grief, the distress that family members can feel when a loved one is receiving end-of-life care. I work in a palliative care unit of a large hospital, and we often have families who are overwhelmed with the reality of the patient’s impending death, to a point that they can’t take in the message that further treatment is medically futile–no amount of heroic interventions can restore the person to health, but only prolong the patient’s suffering. Almost always we can control the patient’s pain,