Psychologist emphasizes the importance of managing emotions regardless of election results

Registered psychologist highlights the importance of managing emotions and staying connected with others, even if they hold different political views.

Registered psychologist Dr. Ganz Ferrance joined CTV Morning Live Edmonton on election day to discuss the importance of staying connected, regardless of election results.

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

Nicole Lampa: What is your advice for people who are disappointed in tonight’s results?

Dr. Ganz Ferrance: One way or the other, somebody’s going to be disappointed. But this is the outcome. This is the outcome that we voted for as a people. I think it’s important, especially now with all the rhetoric around Canadian sovereignty, that we pull together no matter what the outcome is.

What I would say is the folks that are disappointed, give yourself some time to grieve if you need to do that, but then stay engaged. Stay connected with people who support you and with people who have different views than you, because it’s important that we keep connected and keep talking to each other no matter what we believe.

Nicole: What type of emotions typically come up during election time?

Dr. Ganz: Right now, I think there is a lot of heightened emotion overall, so fear, stress and sometimes there’s anger and frustration. One of the things that we know as psychologists is that when we’re feeling heightened emotions, especially things that we consider negative, it’s hard for us to be able to be as objective and as connected as we’d like to be.

Nicole: When there is a political divide amongst friends and family, how do we navigate that?

Dr. Ganz: It’s really important that we stay connected, stay talking to each other and use communication. A few things I tell people when I run my seminars on communication: you want to manage your own state of being and also the other person’s, if possible, when you’re talking about politics or difficult issues. We want to make sure that we’re in a good state ourselves and try to talk to people when they’re in a good state. It’s also really important to think about the relationship and being respectful, as opposed to trying to win the argument or change somebody’s mind, because that’s not always going to work very well.

Nicole: What about social media? When you see people post certain political views and whatnot, should you respond or should you allow people to comment on what you post?

Dr. Ganz: Well, that’s a hard thing, because the difficulty with social media is that it’s somewhat anonymous. When we’re behind a computer, it’s much easier to be more extreme, is what researchers find, than when we are connected face-to-face. As much as we need to manage whatever we need to do to manage our own state, we need to do that. So if we need to back away from social media or not comment or not read the comments on our posts, we need to do that. If you’re going to say something, think about what you would say if the person was standing right there. Do not just jump into the energy that’s online because a lot of times that’s quite toxic.

Nicole: Is there a way to make these conversations productive?

Dr. Ganz: Yes, especially when we’re face to face. I think it’s important to remember that we’re humans and it’s important to look for common ground whenever we’re talking about any difficult issue. It’s important to remember that, in political cases, we have the same outcome. We want a better life for ourselves, for the country, for the people in the country. Look for that sense of commonality. I like Stephen Covey’s seven habits (from his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People). Habit number five is, “Seek first to understand, then be understood.” We want to ask the other person what their views are, why they believe what they believe, be genuinely curious, and by doing that, we stay connected and then we may have a little more influence rather than trying to change somebody’s mind.