Mental health damage could last a generation
Medic with face mask.
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Aside from the obvious physical impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, health professionals have told CNBC that many people are struggling with the immense emotional and societal changes it has brought and, what’s more, are finding it hard to adapt to a “new normal” now that lockdowns are starting to ease.
Many psychologists and psychiatrists have reported an influx in people seeking mental health support during the pandemic, with the unprecedented global health crisis causing an increase in anxiety and depression as well as exacerbating existing mental health conditions.
“I have never been as busy in my life and I’ve never seen my colleagues as busy,” Valentine Raiteri, a psychiatrist working in New York, told CNBC.
“I can’t refer people to other people because everybody is full. Nobody’s taking new patients … So I’ve never been as busy in my life, during the pandemic, and ever in my career,” he said, adding that he’s also seen an influx of former patients returning to him for help.
Raiteri said that many of his patients are still working remotely and were isolated, with many feeling “disconnected and lost, and they just have this kind of malaise.”
“That is really hard for me to do anything about,” he said, noting: “I can’t make the pressures disappear. I can always treat the illness that it provokes.”
A daughter visiting her quarantined mother during a Covid lockdown.
grandriver
Numerous studies have been carried out looking into the impact of Covid on mental health. One study, published in The Lancet medical journal in October, looked at the global prevalence of depression and anxiety disorders in 204 countries and territories in 2020 due to the Covid pandemic.
It found that mental health dramatically declined in that year, with an estimated 53 million additional cases of major depressive disorders and 76 million additional cases of anxiety disorders seen globally. Women and younger people were found to be affected more than men and older adults.
Anxieties
As the pandemic really took hold in the spring of 2020, there was little understanding of how long the pandemic would last. Psychologists say there was a surprising amount of resilience during the first few months of the virus’ outbreak, particularly when many countries went into unprecedented lockdowns.
Raiteri said that over time, however, the loss of daily social contact started to take its toll.
“There’s definitely a huge mental health impact from a long period of uncertainty and change that’s left people very isolated and not sure how to connect. Just being out in public and interacting in a very casual way with strangers or mild acquaintances, that’s very regulating, and norm-creating and reality affirming.”
When we stop getting those signals, Raiteri said, “our internal voices become stronger and it becomes harder and harder to self regulate.”
That created a “big pressure cooker, especially for people who already have a…
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