TRIESTE Maybe it will be remembered as “Anxiety-19”. We work from home in our pajamas, we have reduced social contacts and leisure opportunities, the youngest are putting off many “firsts” and loneliness increases. By now the health, psychological and spiritual crisis that we are experiencing on an individual, collective and global level has gone through the four seasons. With the help of Professor Elisabetta Pascolo-Fabrici, psychiatrist, Director of the Asugi Department of Mental Health, we tried to understand the psychological effects of Covid-19. “The disorders that have grown most frequently – declares the psychiatrist – that we have observed are the so-called” adaptation disorders “which occur when an individual has significant difficulties in adapting or coping with a significant or prolonged psycho-social stressor and occur with symptoms of anxiety or depression. The request for taking charge of our Department of Mental Health – he concludes – has grown by about 400 people more than the previous year, a general figure that I cannot ascribe exclusively to the effect of the pandemic ».
Professor Pascolo, what are the consequences of the virus on our mental health?
There was a first phase of initial momentum and aggregation, we witnessed the famous scenes of solidarity on the balconies in which we applauded each other. And then this second phase which has been prolonged over time, moreover with discordant and negative communications that have created many tensions.
How are we now?
We are in an even more complicated phase because a whole series of problems of maladjustment are beginning to emerge related to the prolonged stress experienced in this period, to which are added economic and social problems, this is also a significant aspect that affects people’s lives. .
What are the most frequent ailments?
The most frequently growing disorders we have observed are so-called “adaptation disorders” which occur when an individual has significant difficulty adapting to or coping with a significant or prolonged psychosocial stressor and typically manifest as anxious or of depression.
Have more people come to your Mental Health Department?
The request for taking charge of our Department has grown by about 400 people more than the previous year, a general figure which, however, I cannot ascribe exclusively to the effect of the pandemic.
Social distancing for us human beings is a big problem …
Contact for our species is vital, in the evolutionary age we can’t even survive without it, in fact in Italy the orphanages are no longer there, they were closed at the end of 2006, according to the law 149 of 2000, because children even when warm and well fed, they let themselves die without human contact.
Socially distant even in the disease, the trauma that many of us are undergoing of not being able to have even the ritual of goodbyes …
For the seriously ill, being deprived of emotional human support is something that significantly compromises the patient’s stability and ability to react. At the same time the family members at home feel deprived of that communication and continuity of their relationship with the sick relative, obviously the discomfort of the patient and of those who stay at home are clearly also a function of the time of separation.
And the young people?
To develop, grow, build our personality and the ability to be in the world we need a contact. In the adolescent phase, in particular, what helps to overcome this specific life cycle is the comparison between peers, that is, between peers, because you are changing physically, psychologically, acquiring different roles typical of adulthood and there is a greater need to reflect. in the other. The fact of not being able to go to school or get together to be together will certainly have repercussions because it slows down or takes away this physiological phase of adolescence of creating the group of friends with whom to face and build their adult life.
And the women?
They find themselves in a situation of fragility especially when there are emotional relationships, marital relationships or difficult coexistence, because clearly in the lockdown these only exacerbate and emerge in even the most dramatic ways.
Will we adapt?
Certainly human beings have an adaptive capacity that depends on many factors: our psychological structure, the relational context in which we move and on time. The longer this stressful situation is maintained over time, the more time it will take to recover and regain balance and adaptation both individually and collectively.
How can we best react to this prolonged stress?
Using digital technologies to continue communicating, from video calls to conference calls, which for example have also helped the Department of Mental Health to carry out therapeutic support activities. They do not completely replace but still represent a moment of confrontation and contact. The strategies are represented by everything that allows to keep active mechanisms of comparison, sharing and as soon as possible to reconstruct the moments of being together physically. –
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