4 Possible Sources Of Post-traumatic Stress During COVID-19
The global crisis triggered by the coronavirus pandemic is having consequences on many levels, and one of the most important is the psychological level.
The impact that this new pathogen has had on patients, on the economy and on the way we socialize and move around has important implications to which mental health professionals are already adapting.
In this sense, one of the psychopathological phenomena to take into account is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD. In this article we will see How PTSD is related to the coronavirus crisis and the way in which in a situation of confinement, online therapy is an effective tool.
What in psychology and psychiatry is known as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a mental disorder that some people develop after experiencing traumatic situations, as its name indicates. These are usually events that generated a significant aversive emotional shock which leaves psychological consequences.
Its symptoms are mainly of an anxious type, linked to stress, and linked to episodes of dissociation, and remain reproduced over and over again in the person’s perception and behavior, as sequelae of the traumatic event experienced, which in some cases even occurred Several years ago. In addition, PTSD often appears along with other psychological disorders, especially depressive and anxiety disorders, as well as addictions.
Some of the characteristic symptoms of PTSD are flashbacks (reliving the experience that produced the trauma in the form of intrusive images that arise in consciousness, and suffering a strong emotional reaction), nightmares, the tendency to irritability or outbursts of anger, the feeling of guilt for what happened, catastrophic thoughts about what will happen in the future, etc.
Elements of the COVID-19 crisis that can generate PTSD
It is clear that the coronavirus is not, by itself, something capable of generating an alteration such as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. However, the crisis context triggered by this pandemic can make that during these months more people than usual develop this psychopathology
Some of the aspects of the coronavirus pandemic capable of causing PTSD cases to increase could be the following.
1. Traumatic events due to the death of family members
Normally, the death of a loved one does not generate trauma, but rather mourning processes that end up resolving over time. However, if the death occurs under very adverse or painful circumstances, some family members may develop PTSD. In the case of the coronavirus pandemic, it is not unusual for these circumstances to occur, due to the collapse of many health systems, the impossibility of seeing the sick, etc.
2. Traumatic events due to chronic illness
Health complications facilitated by coronavirus infection can trigger other diseases whose physical consequences remain. For example, in the case of vascular diseases.
3. Financial and labor crises
Due to the economic crisis derived from the pandemic and forced confinement, many people see how practically overnight they have lost their job or have seen their source of income drastically reduced Many times, even in people who already enjoyed job stability and had formed the expectation of having their lives resolved for the next few decades.
4. Coexistence crisis favored by confinement and the state of alarm
In the face of a very complex situation, serious family altercations may arise because there is a need to be in the same home all the time. In cases where there is domestic violence, there is more exposure to danger
Online psychotherapy to face this reality
As we have seen, during the COVID-19 crisis several factors coincide that, when combined, are capable of compromising the mental health of many people: on the one hand the health problem of the coronavirus, on the other hand the need to comply with confinement, and the other the economic and labor crisis derived from the above.
Although many people will hardly feel emotionally affected by this situation, many others are pushed to the limit by this cocktail of stressors and in certain cases this goes to the extreme of causing the symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder to emerge.
In this situation, Online therapy is positioned as a very valuable tool and sometimes essential to provide professional support to those who need it.
This treatment format is based on the use of electronic devices that are already in the majority of Spanish homes, and has proven to have an effectiveness comparable to that of face-to-face psychotherapy with the psychologist, in addition to providing several advantages: savings of time, greater discretion by not having to leave the house, the possibility of speaking as patients while being in an environment with which we are familiar and in which we feel safe, etc.
Online therapy helps patients go through a process of desensitization to the stimuli that trigger “flashbacks”, and allows you to modify the beliefs that keep the disorder going, among other things. It is not just a dialogue with the psychologist: it is a whole training in the adoption of habits and the management of emotions.
