Political stress

Probably enough of us have not suffered from political stress to any significant levels. If you live in California as I do this type of stress has been on the minimal side. With that in mind I see that there are two types of political stress. One is the type that I would say effects you indirectly and the other is when it effects you directly. Probably the first type is something that as a clinician I would likely hesitate to get too involved with in psychotherapy. This may be where someone is complaining about our taxes are too high or they may complain about the traffic lights are too long. As a therapist I would think that there is some other issues are going on. On the other hand if someone states that their brother was taken away by the secret police for their political views then this would be the second type of stress and would need to be dealt with. If some political leader begins to act like a Hitler and you have some anxiety about this I would likely consider this an important issue to be addressed.
When we had a new president installed there was an initial reaction of high anxiety or delight by many people. I was taken aback when some therapist considered the issue around this anxiety as not something that is too be dealt with in therapy. I would hope that if these therapists were practicing in Nazi Germany and one had a Jewish patient who expressed anxiety about how the Jews were being treated I would have hoped that the therapist would have not deflected from this issue by reminding them that they are avoiding other issues in their lives (e.g., marital stress).