The Emotional Brain in the Time of Collective Crisis

"When I first began writing about the emotional brain for my book Why Good Sex Matters, I approached it through the lens of sexuality-because sex, desire, and pleasure are vivid reflections of our inner emotional life. Over time, I came to see something even broader: How we experience pleasure, manage stress, and connect with others all arise from the same emotional architecture."

"We are living through what I've come to call the "traumademic": a convergence of chronic societal distress layered onto our personal histories of loss, fear, and unresolved trauma. Many people describe feeling simultaneously "revved up" and emotionally numb, caught between anxiety, anger, despair, and exhaustion. To understand why, we need to look beneath the brain/mind's newer evolutionary systems-the neocortex, responsible for reasoning and executive function, and the mid-level brain involved in learning and habits -down into the ancient emotional "basement" of the brain."

"The past several years have carried a constant undercurrent of uncertainty-pandemics, social fragmentation, political polarization, and economic strain. The traumademic reflects what happens when collective upheaval collides with individual vulnerability. Our fear circuits remain chronically activated. Rage flares defensively. And the panic/grief/sadness system-designed to preserve connection-keeps sounding alarms as isolation deepens. Many people feel lonely even when surrounded by others."

Sex, desire, and pleasure serve as vivid indicators of emotional functioning, reflecting shared neural architecture for pleasure, stress management, and social connection. Diminished joy, motivation, intimacy, or vitality signal early imbalance in emotion systems. Contemporary life combines chronic societal stressors with personal histories of loss and unresolved trauma into a 'traumademic,' producing simultaneous hyperarousal and emotional numbness. Fear circuits, rage responses, and panic/grief systems become chronically activated, exacerbating isolation and loneliness. These reactions represent evolved survival mechanisms whose chronic activation impairs emotional regulation rather than indicating personal brokenness. Understanding requires examining older brain systems beneath the neocortex and habit systems.

Read at Psychology Today