The Covid Space

With unprecedented times we have been presented with, an invisible virus with the potential to kill has sent the majority of the world behind closed doors to protect them from this threat of annihilation, generating an anxiety that we are still trying to understand.

The world we walked away from is now becoming more distant from us as time goes by and the world in which we entered is having a detrimental effect on mental health. The space at home is what I will elaborate on as my observations as a therapist during this Pandemic.

The structures in which families and homes have been working with; family, work, schooling, socialising and domestic demands have all been sent into chaos and uncertainty, I noticed at first with some this seemed like a two-week break from the demands of a life full of commitments while processing an overload of information which would exhaust the anyone’s coping mechanisms. For others, this was devastating as they were left in total isolation.

Two weeks turned into nine weeks with this new wave of terror and trauma being delivered to our homes and lives on a consistent basis, with the added pressure of trying to restructure a world with no space to think. This uncertainty, threat of annihilation, disconnection from reality as we knew it and the space to work all this out is becoming too much on families and individuals trying to cope and has resulted in a lot of confusion, frustration and despair.

At times this despair was difficult to ground, as our ground in this pandemic has shifted so many times with developments around it changing as the days go by. I noticed this was having an unusual effect on families; there was little space for anyone to think away from all this. The boundaries between school, work and home life have all become central to how we live at present. The impact of this on mental health is what we are still trying to understand.

We have been constantly listening to language like death numbers, social distance, isolation and fear of touch. We have also been encouraged into what would seem like obsessional compulsive behaviours in terms of handwashing and paranoia of unseen droplets of the virus. We could translate that therapeutically as a fear of intimacy. People have become terrified of intimacy at a time of despair when intimacy is the antidote.

For families, some have used this time to bond and recreate their understanding of each other. For others, it has faced them with the issues they once had space from with work and social life. For individuals, ithas faced them with themselves, with nothing to distract themselves from. We have been forced to look at how we cope and think. This has caused a mental health crisis.

Moving forward and addressing the unfolding crises this has had on mental health, we have to face many challenges in the therapeutic world; the loss of reality as we knew it, the loss of autonomy, reparation of the effects the covid space has had on individuals and families and a new way of thinking we are trying to adjust to in the world.

We must think about addressing the loss, despair, fear of intimacy and paranoia we have been left with and develop tools to live in this uncertain world. We also must consider the social effects like economic depression and secondary health effects due to hospital limitations. We must look at how this covid space and boundaries need to be recreated using the safe intimate space of therapy to heal and develop a new way of thinking.

These are just a few of the challenges we will face in the aftermath of an unprecedented reality.

Sabrina Ginesi BA, MPhil, Dip. Psych

June 2020