Park Jong-seok (center), a psychiatrist, appears on tvN's "You Quiz on the Block" in December last year, recounting his failed stock investments. [YouTube channel screen capture]
Park Jong-seok (center), a psychiatrist, appears on tvN's "You Quiz on the Block" in December last year, recounting his failed stock investments. [YouTube channel screen capture]

A psychiatrist who once confessed to losing 320 million won ($221,000) in stock investments says the recent market crash feels to novice investors like being stabbed or experiencing the shock of a natural disaster such as an earthquake.

Park Jong-seok, a psychiatrist who specializes in treating stock addiction, said in a phone interview Wednesday evening on CBS Radio's "Park Jae-hong's One-Round Bout" that the number of patients visiting his clinic over stock investments had more than doubled this week compared with last week.

He added that the average losses reported by his counseling patients had also more than tripled.

Park added that novice investors who began trading during a period of surging share prices tend to feel an even greater sense of fear.

"These people have never experienced a stock market crash before, so they have no immunity to it whatsoever," Park said. "That is why they often show more severe symptoms of depression and panic than others."

He went on to say that the area of the brain that registers pain when a person is stabbed or burned — the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex — is exactly the same region activated by FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) syndrome triggered by stock investment losses.

FOMO syndrome refers to the sense of isolation or deprivation a person feels when others are making large profits in the stock market while they feel left behind.

Park said the shock of the recent market plunge can feel comparable to the impact of a natural disaster like an earthquake.

"If this level of crash and loss accumulates for more than three days, I believe people psychiatrically experience a sense of despair and depression that qualifies as post-traumatic stress disorder," Park said. He added that suddenly losing hundreds of millions or tens of millions of won means the entire foundation of one's life collapses.

As a remedy, he urged investors to delete their stock trading apps and cut themselves off from all news and social media for two weeks.

Park said avoiding one's stock account for anywhere from two or three days to as long as two weeks is necessary to recover even 20 to 30 percent of one's original concentration and judgment.

Park had earlier revealed on "You Quiz on the Block" in December last year that he suffered from stock addiction between 2017 and 2018, accumulating investment losses of 320 million won. He said he had engaged in impulsive trading of various theme stocks and low-grade shares instead of blue chips, and later failed after venturing into futures and options trading in an attempt to recoup his losses.

Meanwhile, the Kospi and Kosdaq markets plunged more than 1,000 points combined over two consecutive days on Tuesday and Wednesday, triggering circuit breakers — automatic trading halts — on both sessions.


yeonjoo7@heraldcorp.com