Elizabeth Burke, LCSW. Maine psychotherapist

Anxiety has been treated for years as an individual medical problem, but it has also been treated as a problem related to a stressful environment. Therapists and doctors recognize the role stress has in our lives, even if they don't focus much on the systems we live in. They more often focus on how you as an individual manage the stress. I think it is important to look at both issues, because I believe environments and systems (people systems, work systems, community systems) can be very stress inducing. We think we "should" be able to handle stressful environments, without wondering whether in fact we have created environments we are not really well able to adapt to. It's an odd question to ask one's self: How is it humans could create systems and environments they aren't really well suited to--spiritually or health wise? But I think it is an important question to ask. In fact, humans have created systems of living that end up collapsing.

In my work with people, I like to look at things as much from the private individual perspective as the systems perspective, because I believe environments are so critically important to our sense of health and good welfare.