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Fear and hope in the time of Covid

The coronavirus pandemic has interrupted our lives and disrupted the status quo – that which confers normalcy and (feels like) security. As we have in recent months reorganised and adapted our lives to halt the virus in its destructive tracks we have been derailed from our personal and collective sense of forward motion (progression). Forced sideways into new territories (socially, emotionally, physically and economically) some of us find our individual plans compromised and in many instances, in tatters. Confronted by an inescapable sense of uncertainty our coping mechanisms have been given a significant stress test. The covid ‘reset’ has demanded a refocusing of our priorities and our attentions.

Disrupted from our familiar rhythms and rituals and suddenly with multiple roles overlapping (and potentially conflicting) parent, teacher, partner, carer etc, most of us have experienced a significant blurring of more familiar boundaries. Under ‘normal’ circumstances different parts of our identity have different social settings, work, school, gym etc. Without the scope for differentiation that all these settings and contexts confer we may feel somewhat untethered, cast adrift. “Who am I now?”

The illusion of individualism

The comforting illusion that we may be masters of our own destiny is now creaking beneath the weight of new and uncomfortable evidence. Our interdependence and connectedness were never more clear. When we experience a loss of control and feel the fear that it evokes we are confronted by our best and worst selves. We have all witnessed (in recent weeks) and been moved by, acts of supreme neighbourliness, altruism and humanity. We may have experienced these capacities newly in ourselves and felt enlivened by our capacity to express them. More disquieting, lurking somewhere in the dark recesses of our individual and collective psyches (activated by the same fear) lives its shadowy xenophobic counterpart, suspicious, wary and often hostile…. to difference, to change, to ‘the other.’

The uncontrollability of the corona virus may reflect something of the uncontrollability of a globalised world. Both highlight our mutual dependence and by implication our mutual vulnerability. At a time when a sense of universal unity might be prescient it is also a time at which it seems extremely unlikely. In a state of fear the instinct is to contract mentally and physically, to batten down the hatches against a real or imagined enemy. In a state of fear we may abandon our capacities for hope and for trust…. on a global as well as an individual level.

The necessity of conversation

The truth (about anything) may only emerge at the end of a long conversation (always subject to review). That is to say, a genuine conversation, not a series of scripted monologues (in disguise) masquerading as conversation. A genuine conversation is one in which neither party is certain of knowing what the end will be, since in the process of conversation each party is shaped by the other.

This notion seems antithetical to current political discourse. At a time when our political leaders seem unable to agree on a path ahead how important it is that we steady ourselves in the face of such polarisation and uncertainty.

What are the conversations we need to begin having…..with ourselves, with our partners, our children, our families and our community? How might these conversations become fertile explorations of what matters now? Whilst the disruption caused by the virus has undoubtedly brought tragedy to many, perhaps (in spite of itself) it might also bring opportunity. Fear and hope are inextricably linked, each counterbalancing the other. When there is no easy path ahead how do we retain a sense of equanimity and trust? How might we stay open to the important conversations that need to be had without closing down… our minds and our hearts. How do we retain our humanity when we fear for our lives. How do we hold on to hope?

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Gerry Gilmartin is an accredited, registered and experienced psychotherapeutic counsellor. She currently works with individuals (young people/adults) and couples in private practice. Gerry is available at our Brighton and Hove Practice.

 

Further reading by Gerry Gilmartin

Relationships, networks and connections

Paying attention to stress

Why does empathy matter?

What is Intimacy?

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“Should I stay, or should I go?” What does easing the lockdown mean to you?

I have found the Clash’s song of this title playing over in my mind when thinking about the current easing of the social lock down in the UK. It seems to me that we all, to some degree or another, now face a dilemma whether to stay or go.

Straight away, it is important to acknowledge the relationship of this dilemma to levels of freedom and privilege. It is true that some people have little or no choice about whether to go back into their workplace.  We all face very differing health concerns, with those in the ‘extremely vulnerable clinical group’ likely to feel greatest levels of concern and anxiety about going outside.  There has also been concerning, though unsurprising, expositions of inequalities in terms of health risks, with poorer and BAME people having greater chances of fatality.

However, in my experience these will not prevent them from experiencing similar kinds of conflicts at this time. It is a reality that a great many of us will, to some degree or another, be starting to wonder about how or when or whether we return to ‘normal’.

I have been wondering myself about this dilemma but I am also interested in how it might tap into broader questions about how we think about ourselves in relationship to our worlds – both outside and inside.

There is no doubt this has been a strange and disturbing time and of course we are no way through it. The sudden exponential growth of the virus and pandemic was frightening, and many felt traumatised by the level of crisis and what felt like an intense threat to our mortality. The war metaphors and imagery referenced by our government, while perhaps intended to help rally a ‘blitz spirit’, in all likelihood, simply added to the terror already felt by many.

The orders to lock down came as a relief for many people. We had permission to retreat and protect ourselves against what had suddenly become a hostile world. This was and is a necessary response but one that also exacerbated the fear of the outside world engendered by the virus and the rhetoric used about it.

We all responded differently to the retreat and this of course varied at different times. There are those who found and continue to find the lock down liberating, others who found and find it oppressive.  Of course, we are also living in different circumstances which add or detract from the benefits of the protection it offers. For example, it has been widely reported that incidents of domestic violence and abuse have increased during this period. Many were able to work easily from home, many were not and there was, and is still, differences between the level of risk for those going into work. And many have lost work or continue to face this as an increasing prospect.

External factors aside, our relationship to the pandemic and the lock down response will also key into aspects of our own internal worlds. A reluctance to move out of lock down could arise for those of us who tend to use retreat as a defence. It makes sense that the bubble offered by the lock down could tap into and heighten historical ways of managing difficult realities through strategies of self-seclusion. At the same time, those of us who have particularly found the lack of purpose and activity in the lock down difficult may have developed defences around keeping busy as a means of warding away difficult or painful feelings.  This could lead to a manic response to the easing of restrictions – perhaps a rushing quickly back into the world and ‘normality’.

Of course, both states may be at play in us at different times, but I am wondering about our overall tendencies that will shape how we are likely to interpret, and respond to, this shift in government advice.

Reflecting on my starting title, I wonder now about the aptness of the Clash song. It seems the transition from lock down to ‘normality’ (whatever that means) is not going to be as either/or as staying or leaving a relationship. It looks likely anyway that we are going to experience further Covid outbreaks with many expert views suggesting the current easing as premature and a second wave imminent.  We can therefore most probably anticipate more lock downs, perhaps even soon.

So, it feels more appropriate to think about a dialectic in/out situation we find ourselves facing requiring complex navigations. How we proceed and find our way through these difficult and disturbing times and those ahead, will be dictated by many external factors but also our own internal worlds and their responses, conscious and unconscious, to the different experiences of this pandemic.

 

Claire Barnes is an experienced UKCP registered psychotherapist and group analyst offering psychodynamic counselling and psychotherapy to individuals and groups at our Hove practice.

 

Further reading by Claire Barnes

Silences in Therapy

Sibling Rivalry – Part 1

Sibling Rivalry – Park 2e

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Corona Virus …… is in my garden!

Early in lockdown I turned  to my garden for the first time in a long time and my thoughts took an interesting turn which I wanted to share with you.

I spotted the jasmine shrub which had overgrown and was ‘invading’ my garden!  It had put deep star shaped roots all over the garden which were impossible to pull out. It was a ‘threat’, ‘invasive’, ‘runaway’, ‘contagious’.

I felt a mixture of feelings as I contemplated the consequences of my gardening neglect…..

….. overwhelm –it’s everywhere,

….. I’m not strong enough to beat it,

….. It’s spreading to my neighbours,

….. It will overpower and kill everything………maybe it will kill me…….

Kneeling on the infected earth,   demoralised, defeated and sweaty,  I  reflected awhile.

My garden had become a metaphor for the Coronavirus.

I wondered how I could make use of this metaphor to help me to come to terms with this unprecedented shocking world situation which was turning mine and others’ lives upside down and inside out.

I realised that although I couldn’t personally make any inroads into conquering the Corona virus, my humble garden would be a  much smaller and more manageable project.

Renewed hope reconnected me to resilience and perseverance. I hacked and chopped, I cut and cleared,  I dug and dug with a fervour ignited by my hatred of this virus, this ‘C ‘ word.

I cleared, I sorted, I ordered.  I took a longer view.  I wouldn’t manage to clear this weed today but if I kept at it I might succeed. Onward.

And magically as my garden was transforming, becoming clear and free from jasmine chaos, so my mind was becoming  clear and free.  Clear spaces of rich brown fertile earth reappeared in my mind.

And in this clear space Creativity bloomed.  I began to imagine possibilities for planting, for creating a lush healthy future for my garden.  My garden became a visible and experiential  dis-confirmation of the prevailing world crisis. Where the news was predicting death doom and disaster, my garden foretold of  renewal, regeneration and growth.

My garden remains undeterred by Covid-19 and lockdown.  Ever since March 23rd it  has behaved exactly the same as it always has. Spring arrived as usual, the leaves unfurling from trees and shrubs, new life shooting up from the ground apparently back from the dead.  This absolute predictability, regularity, repetition, this infinite miracle of nature has offered comfort and connection for me in this time of isolation and powerlessness.

As a Dramatherapist I seek  to work with Metaphor, Symbol, Image as a way of re-presenting reality.  I seek to connect, those things which are held inside of us with those things which are on the outside.

 

Magdalena Whitehouse is an experienced HCPC Registered Drama Therapist, working with individuals, couples and  groups. Magdalena is available at our Brighton and Hove Practice.

Further reading by Magdalena Whitehouse –
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Covid-19 – talking with children in uncertain times

How do we contain our children’s anxiety in such uncertain times, when we too feel anxious and unsure ourselves?

When children are nervous we may notice them continually searching for reassurance – the usual advice would be to acknowledge this but keep reassurances to a minimum, modelling to them that fundamentally the adults in their life believe that the world is a safe place.

However, here we are – smack bang – in the middle of unprecedented times where it may be difficult for us, ‘the grown ups’, to keep level heads ourselves around our families health and economic future.

Our most important job is to manage our own anxiety whilst engaging with our children honestly and openly about the developing situation. Their worlds of home and school have been thrown into orbit; they had to say a hastened, brutal goodbye to friends and teachers not knowing when they would see them again.  The novelty of not being is school has now probably faded a little – time at home with parents is usually pleasurable but sometimes not.  Relationships can be put under extraordinary pressure when we are in lockdown with an unclear future.

Whilst we need to talk to children openly and find out their understanding of the pandemic, our responses should contain reassurances aplenty but we must to be careful not to give absolute guarantees.

It is within human nature to endeavour to provide an environment for our children in which they feel safe. Maybe we can begin to appreciate how these trying times can be viewed as an opportunity for us to model kindness, resilience and compassion.  We can hope that our children will remember these formative times as a period in which they learnt important life lessons along with resilience for their futures.

 

Sharon Spindler is an experienced Systemic Family Therapist with twelve years experience within the NHS and private practice.  Sharon is available at the Brighton & Hove Practice.

 

Further reading by Sharon Spindler –

Family Therapy for Beginners

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Coronavirus Lock-Down – Physical Health vs Mental Health

As I write this blog, we are entering into the fourth week of so-called ‘lock-down’ across the UK. Despite daily speculation, nobody has any idea how long the restrictions on life will last for. 

Everything has changed and this has been hard to cope with in a society where stability and the ordinary continuity of life has been severely disrupted and curtailed; the UK population is currently in limbo, isolated from the wider community and possibly in closer physical contact with family than ever before. 

We know why we are doing this – we are reminded multiple times per day – to ‘save lives’ and ‘protect the NHS’. 

There has been much talk of the compelling priorities of the health of the nation vs the health of the economy. Arguably initially it was the later that took precedent in this country meaning we are now facing large numbers of fatalities. However, beyond the obvious economic costs of ‘lock-down’ and social distancing, the mental health impact seems to have been largely overlooked. 

Why start now? 

Despite a strong history and legacy of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy in the UK, mental health provision has long-since slipped from the forefront of policy-makers minds. Gone is the aptitude to be curious and instead a culture of symptoms has emerged increasingly oblivious to the fact that symptoms are communicating emotional and psychic distress. Depression has ceased to be seen as an inability to mourn and is instead an illness to be medicalised – as if it can be caught from the air like Coronavirus. 

So, in the midst of the pandemic, it is not surprising that any meaningful discussion on the impacts of quarantine, lock-down and social distancing will have on mental health, not to mention the ongoing rhetoric of how the socially interactive parts of our lives will be ‘changed forever’; today the WHO suggested that wearing a face-mask in public must become the long-term norm without the being any consideration to what the psychological impacts on self and others would be from such a policy. For example, where healthy development of an infant is contingent on them constantly scanning their care-givers face for reassurance and validation, what will the effect be of masking these quite literally behind a surgical mask? 

Compelling needs 

Whilst some of us may remain in denial, there is no question that social distancing is the only real means available at present to combat this pandemic. It is the oldest method in the book for dealing with epidemics and remains all we have (at present). 

However, for relational beings (which is what humans are) the strategy is psychologically and emotionally challenging (and for many catastrophic). 

Humans understand themselves and gain a sense of meaning through relationships with others. This is not a luxury – it is essential both as we develop and throughout our lives. Not only do humans needs to be able to communicate verbally, but we also require contact that is ‘non-verbal’. 

The mortality of isolation 

Isolation may keep us safe from the Coronavirus, however isolation is linked is not the cause of many mental health problems such as depression and anxiety and is fatal, particularly for the elderly (who, it would seem, are also being most impacted by Covid-19). Indeed, some studies have shown that loneliness is, indirectly, the biggest killer of the elderly. 

Virtual connections 

We live in an age where we can make use of virtual connections and video conference software to stay in touch with each other – my profession – psychotherapy – has overnight shifted to online working to ensure the continuity of therapy sessions. This is a positive, however, it will not migrate the tsunami of mental health and relationship problems that will arrive in the wake of the health crisis. 

Meaning making propositions 

For many, our daily lives, often revolving around work, provide us with a profound and anchoring sense of meaning and purpose. Not only has the ‘treadmill’ stopped, but with it much of the sense of purpose and meaning that many of us have. These two combined can be difficult to manage contributing to anxiety and depression – a literal crisis of meaning. 

Anxiety 

In the absence of meaning and purpose, and with the distractions of ‘ordinary’ life removed, anxiety can bubble up. It can leave us with a profound sense of unease and discomfort in our own skin and the wider world. And at present, it is hard to escape from. Of course, in reality anxiety can never be escaped from – it is part of us. It can, however, be faced and used to ask difficult questions about how we live our lives. 

Depression 

We are faced with a narrative from the media and politicians that ‘things will never be the same again’. I am unsure really what this means other than that it sounds like a warning or premonition of some kind. Being alive means accepting that things cannot remain the same and that we adapt. Change is hard and it forces us to be confronted with difficult emotions that many of us would rather run from. In the current climate of Covid, running from emotions has simply become harder. 

Whilst there simply cannot be a national or state managed balance between physical and mental health needs at present, this does not mean that as individuals we cannot be staying with our discomfort and asking ourselves what we ultimately want from this precarious life. 

 

Mark Vahrmeyer, UKCP Registered, BHP Co-founder is an integrative psychotherapist with a wide range of clinical experience from both the public and private sectors. He currently sees both individuals and couples, primarily for ongoing psychotherapy.  Mark is available at the Lewes and Brighton & Hove Practices.

 

Further reading by Mark Vahrmeyer –

Why psychotherapy sessions should end on time

Coronavirus Induced Mental Health Issues

Coronavirus (Covid-19) Counselling

How being ordinary is increasingly extraordinary – On the role of narcissistic defences

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