The Impact Of The Coronavirus Pandemic On Agoraphobia Cases
The SARS-CoV-2 virus pandemic has plunged the world into a very deep social, economic and health crisis for months and it is clear that it has been a very complex phenomenon to analyze. For this reason, sometimes we fall into simplism even when we limit ourselves to assessing the impact it has had on people’s health.
And, in many cases, we only take into account the medical problems associated with COVID-19, and we overlook that the pandemic does not need us to come into direct contact with the virus to harm us. To do this, it uses an element with a great capacity to affect our mental health: fear.
Fear can take many forms, and most of them do not constitute a mental disorder; But in exceptional situations, everything around us conspires to make what began as a fear that we initially assumed to be normal become a true vicious circle of anticipatory anxiety, avoidance behaviors of imaginary dangers and other harmful dynamics. This is what has occurred on more than one occasion with agoraphobia facilitated by the pandemic context.
Agoraphobia is, above all, a psychological disorder that is part of anxiety disorders, a category that includes mental disorders based on a dysfunctional way of managing our thoughts and emotions when something or someone makes us feel anxious (and that, As a result, it makes us feel that way a lot.)
Specifically, people who develop agoraphobia are very predisposed to suffer intense anxiety attacks when faced with situations in which they perceive that it would be difficult to flee from danger if it appeared and/or in which they could not get help in case something bad happens to them (such as suffering from their own “peak” of anxiety). For this reason, someone with agoraphobia adopts a series of behavioral patterns based on the avoidance of those “threatening” places, which, contrary to popular belief, can be either open places (a wide, busy street) or closed places ( an elevator): what is important is the degree to which the person perceives that they are protected in that place or can have the support of someone involved in their well-being.
Some of the characteristic symptoms of agoraphobia (which do not have to occur all at the same time in the person) are:
In this way, agoraphobia is a disorder that, without the person realizing it, leads her into a vicious cycle of fear and avoidance: Little by little the idea arises that we do not have control over the way in which these strong states of anxiety are activated, and this causes them to manifest more easily and normally with increasing frequency. And in turn, the desire to avoid problems by exposing yourself to places where there is no protection or help available makes agoraphobia gain prominence in the person’s life, which causes them to self-suggest (involuntarily) and become more vulnerable to anxiety.
And what does this have to do with the coronavirus pandemic? Let’s see it below.
What do we know about anxiety problems triggered by the coronavirus?
A report published at the end of 2021 by the European Commission and the OECD shows some revealing data about the relationship between the pandemic and psychological alterations linked to anxiety:
On the other hand, research carried out on the psychological consequences that COVID-19 has left behind in many cases shows that Those who have suffered cases with significant symptoms are statistically more likely to suffer from anxiety disorders (around 15% of people developed at least one in the weeks following the onset of the disease), among which is agoraphobia.
Thus, the coronavirus pandemic has not affected the entire population equally, neither in terms of the risk of developing a serious case of COVID-19, nor in terms of the impact that the crisis has had on people’s mental health. Thus, those who during these months were in a situation of economic precariousness or did not have a job have reported suffering more anxiety problems, and the feeling of anguish has also been greater in those who did not enjoy good health or were at risk population due to their age. . But curiously, young people have also been the target of increased anxiety and depression problems, probably due to the disruption of their habits and, also, possibly due to their greater vulnerability due to job insecurity.
It is also worth noting that during the pandemic, The health care capacity and coverage of the health system of most countries has been significantly reduced: Waiting lists have increased and emphasis has been placed on medical and psychotherapeutic care in online format in order to avoid travel and in-person meetings, something that has left those who do not have good access to the Internet or knowledge to use it in a vulnerable situation. .
These kinds of changes that have occurred on a global scale, taking place throughout society at once, has caused many people to feel especially exposed to danger, a breeding ground from which cases of agoraphobia can arise relatively easily. There has been the feeling that a large mass of people have moved in unison to protect themselves from the virus, following strict and radical measures, but at the same time without being able to offer complete protection to those who do not have it easy to follow in the footsteps of the rest or They start from a more delicate health or economic state.
A disorder that exploits our vulnerabilities
As we have seen, in the pandemic There have been several conditions capable of affecting us psychologically.
On the one hand, the pandemic has been part of the main news of the day for months, given that its effects have been felt in all areas of society. On the other hand, governments have applied very significant health restrictions that have affected people’s daily lives in very basic aspects, demanding citizen collaboration to act as a block and stop the contagion curve. And on the other, for a significant period, the health system has been overwhelmed by the situation.
Because of this, All the ingredients have been given for a psychological disorder such as agoraphobia to gain influence over an important part of the population, both quantitatively (being developed by more people) and qualitatively (finding in daily situations more elements to “lean on” and stay active, affecting mental health). This has happened because:
For many months it has been difficult to stay away from ideas or images that exploited the population’s fears (sometimes for sensationalism, sometimes to keep citizen collaboration active in preventing infections).
Especially vulnerable minorities have appeared who may have felt displaced or alienated because the public narrative about the measures to be demanded and applied to fight the virus did not represent them, fueling the idea that they were alone in the face of danger.
The fact of having gone through the disease can leave psychological consequences at least in the short and medium term, enough for other psychopathologies such as agoraphobia to arise from these fears.
For months, there has been fear mongering about the idea of going on busy streets due to a hypothetical increased risk of infection (although it was later shown that the vast majority of infections occur indoors).
In the months of harshest restrictions, confinement at home could mean that for many people the only safe place became their own home, making it difficult to lose the fear of going out.
All these images and ideas linked to fear have been transmitted and reinforced over and over again through the media and everyday conversations, so it is not surprising that mental health problems have skyrocketed during this period. And for this reason, the possibility of going to psychotherapy to overcome disorders such as agoraphobia is more important than ever.
You may be interested: “What is fear? Characteristics of this emotion”
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I am Paloma Rey and I am qualified as a General Health Psychologist ; I serve people of all ages and give the option of holding sessions in person or online by video call.
