Anxiety In Times Of COVID: Taking Care Of Mental Health, A Pillar To Combat It
A year ago, the WHO (World Health Organization) declared COVID-19 a pandemic. In 365 days many unusual things have happened. Care and rules that were not part of the imaginary were incorporated into daily life..
Human relationships were transformed into something different, from then on the links were maintained with other means. Many professions have been valued and it has been revealed how vulnerable human beings are. But… has the importance of mental health been taken into account?
The subjects are made up of a physical and psychological apparatus that work in a complementary way. It is necessary to attend to both in order to be in good condition and thus face events as destabilizing as this one..
Psychoanalysis proposes that the subject is psychic and social; He enters the world through a family that welcomes him, protects him and gives him the keys to inhabit life. Therefore, the subject needs others to be able to live, develop, grow, exchange.
Taking into account the above and the current state of semi-confinement or restricted mobility and possibility of meetings (and with a year of these limitations), it is clear that anxiety states multiply.
Two issues must be addressed: on the one hand, loneliness as an unsatisfactory situation, although almost obligatory in some circumstances; and the restriction of ties (meetings, encounters, etc.). Both issues trigger scenarios that must be managed to avoid getting sick.
It should be noted that reducing stress is a perfect ally for maintaining our health. Anxiety states subject the body to lowered defenses and make it more sensitive to physical illnesses.. Therefore, it is essential to have a state of mind that favors the immune system. With psychoanalysis you can work on this path, producing a new subject that gets rid of those issues that cause discomfort, modifying words, phrases, mechanisms.
There is a global reality in the world of 2021 that cannot be managed at the individual level, it is bigger than the subject. However, A change can occur in each one that will have an effective impact on that reality.. And that is the only way for that reality to change, by modifying one’s own positioning. Waiting for the “storm to pass” is the least productive idea.
Each person chooses which path to take and they are all valid, the question will be determined by the desire that commands, by the overdetermination of each one. They are all ways of enjoying and, although it often sounds contradictory or difficult to understand, in suffering (in the symptom, anxiety, phobia, etc.) there is also enjoyment. Nothing is really wasted, but rather something more or less healthy for one is done. One product (health) or another (symptom) is generated; They are all ways to resolve a psychic conflict.
However, If you wait for “everything to pass” to resume “life,” you waste the opportunity to discover things to do., new things to learn, new ways of doing. The opportunity to add a way to enjoy is being missed and the pain for this lost time can generate an illness.
Pain and fear are defense mechanisms that human beings have in dangerous situations; in addition, without a certain anguish the desire is not achieved. That’s why you have to put anxiety to work.
The key will be to become the subject of your own life instead of a spectator, taking that leap. That is the only change that can be made, modify the position. Transforming psychic reality will be what allows us to modify material reality. It is about learning to substitute, knowing how to add, adding ways of doing things and not getting into trouble with this situation (which we cannot control beyond ourselves).
The best way to do this work and to achieve healthy mental health, which allows the subject’s full potential to be deployed by putting himself in control of his life, will be to undergo psychoanalysis. Through an element as fundamental as analytical listening, the subject will be able to decompress those words spoken to those who do not belong, those shouted silences, and will be able to talk to who needs to be talked to.
At the moment the need to feel heard is the most urgent demand. The problem is that on many occasions you talk to the wrong person. In the consultation with a psychoanalyst, the patient feels listened to without prejudices, without judgments. He knows that the analyst will not take sides or tell him what to do or not to do. And that is why, because the analyst is neither scared, impatient, nor bothered, that the patient will be able to speak freely about whatever he wants.
From the moment the patient can put words to what is happening to him, he begins to improve. Because words build the subject, is crossed by them. If he cannot speak, if he cannot put into words what distresses him, he becomes ill. To speak is to begin to heal.
