I'm okay and you're okay, but not so sure about Y2K

The year 2000 is already triggering anxiety in people who fear accidents and disasters.

By Lisa Rabasca
Monitor staff

When the clock strikes midnight on Dec. 31, 1999,no one knows whether the world's elevators, planes, cash machines and other computer-operated equipment will continue working properly. For people with anxiety-related disorders, this uncertainty is already triggering fear and stress related to the year 2000, according to several experts on anxiety.

'For a subgroup of people with anxiety-related disorders-characterized by a general sense of unpredictability and worry about the future-the year 2000 will become a significant focus,' says David H. Barlow, PhD, director of the Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders at Boston University.

And because no one really knows what will happen next Jan. 1, there appears to be some legitimate reason for concern, which feeds the anxieties of people who have difficulty dealing with unpredictable and uncontrollable events, says Barlow.

Several patients being treated for anxiety-related disorders have already expressed concerns about the millennial change, says Barlow. Typical fears include the possibility that food supplies will dry up because computerized warehouses won't be able to ship supplies, or that utilities, such as heat and water, will be cut off because of computer failure.

Fear of uncontrollable events is not uncommon. Estimates show that about one in five people experiences symptoms related to anxiety disorders, including panic attacks, excessive worry and fear of places and situations, says David L. Kupfer, PhD, a clinical psychologist in Falls Church, Va., who specializes in phobias and other anxiety-related disorders. About half of those people will have clinically significant concerns related to some aspect of the year 2000, he says, noting that anyone who fears accidents and disasters is likely to fear the millennial change. For example, he says, someone who is clinically affected by the year 2000 will experience obsessive worry without taking any effective action to change the situation, such as gathering information.

'I fully anticipate, and practitioners should be prepared for, an increase in clients with phobic reactions,' says Kupfer.

In fact, nearly one in four Americans believes the year 2000 problem could affect them directly, according to a poll released in August at the World Congress on Information and Technology at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.

All the anxiety stems from concern that billions of lines of computer codes and billions of embedded chips will not be replaced in time to prevent computers from reading the year 2000 as the year 1900. Since the 1960s, computers have used only the last two digits of the year to record the date, says Scott Werkstell, a senior manager in the health-care and insurance technology practice at Price-waterhouseCoopers in Atlanta. On Jan. 1, 2000, computers that have not been updated may malfunction.

Internet feeds anxieties

Hundreds of Internet web sites devoted to surviving the new millennium are elevating the anxiety level for people who tend to focus on upcoming catastrophes, Barlow says. Typical sites encourage people to change their cash into gold in case global markets fail, to purchase water filters and solar products to prepare for computer-related utility problems and to establish an emergency food supply in case computerized warehouses are unable to ship food to grocery stores.

'The fear promulgated over the Internet is very seductive regardless of whether it is real,' says Jerilyn Ross, president of the Anxiety Disorder Association of America (ADAA), in Rockville, Md.

Reports in the popular press are also heightening concerns about the year 2000. A recent Reuters article reported that there has been some speculation over whether the insurance industry will withdraw its coverage for airlines for the year 2000, fearing computer-related accidents brought on by the date change. A spokesman for KLM Royal Dutch Airlines recently said the airline is not certain whether it can operate flights safely on Jan. 1, 2000, the article reports.

'If insurance companies are worried about the year 2000, it is not abnormal for the public to express anxiety about it,' says clinical psychologist Kupfer.

Year 2000 is a milestone

Anxiety about the new millennium goes beyond possible technical glitches. Ron Rhodes of the Christian Research Institute in California, notes that anxiety swept the world in 999 AD as people prepared for that millennial change. And ADAA's Ross agrees that for some people millennial anxiety is based on emotional, not technical, reasons.

'For many people, the year 2000 is the end of something comfortable and the beginning of something new, even though it is only a number,' says Ross, who also directs the Ross Center for Anxiety-Related Disorders in Washington, D.C.

Because the year 2000 is an unfamiliar number, says Kupfer, many people fear it. 'What we know, we trust,' he says, 'and what we don't know, we fear.' Even though it is only an arbitrary number, people will experience the year 2000 as a boundary between the familiar and unfamiliar, he says.

Generally, people who fear the unknown have developed a basic sense of mistrust in themselves and the world, says Kupfer. 'If you don't have basic trust in the world, the year 2000 can look very scary and you can find yourself coping by storing up grain or doing something to make sure you have a water supply.'

Many people also view the millennium as a milestone birthday, such as turning 40 or 50, says Roy F. Baumeister, PhD, a psychology professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. 'It is a cue that time is passing, things are different and death is closer,' says Baumeister, who organized an APA symposium on bizarre phenomena that was published in 1997 as a special issue of the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology (Vel. 16, No. 2, p. 213-223).

For example, you may abruptly feel older as the year 2000 approaches, he says. Or, if you vowed to make a change in your life by the year 2000 and it hasn't occurred, you may be distressed about the new millennium.

'A millennial change gives us a milestone to look at ourselves and ask, 'Are we evolving?'' says Daniel Kealey, PhD, associate professor of philosophy at Towson State University in Maryland, where he teaches a course on society's reaction to millennial changes.

Managing the fear

Experts on anxiety say practitioners should help clients separate 'real concerns' about their home computers operating properly next Jan. 1 from catastrophic thinking that there will be no food or water available next year.

Many people react to things that are new and unknown without processing the information, says Ross. To help people cope with their fears, they encourage psychologists to teach patients to challenge their own assumptions and to question where the information is coming from and whether it is based on scientific fact, she says. If there is a real threat, such as their computer is not year-2000 compliant, encourage them to take steps to fix the problem, she says. Worrying about it is not productive. (For tips on making sure your computer is year-2000 compliant, see article on page 18.)

Barlow agrees that it is important to help people distinguish normal concerns from worries that verge on the pathological. The defining feature, he says, is whether a fear dominates and interferes with a client's life to the point that he or she can't work.

Another useful tack is helping people remember that they have successfully coped with change in the past, Kupfer says. Practitioners can emphasize that even if there is a problem, such as the water supply temporarily shutting down, there is reason to believe people will act appropriately.

And, says Kupfer, it can be helpful to remind people that the year 2000 is an invented fear. Consider this, he says: Our year 2000 will be the year 5760 on the Jewish calendar, 4698 on the Chinese calendar, 1421 on the Islamic calendar and 1922 on the Indian calendar.





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