Globally, psychologists and psychiatrists are reporting an influx of people seeking mental health support during the pandemic, CNBC reported.
Increased anxiety and depression is seen in both new and old patients.
“I have never been so busy in my life and I have never seen my colleagues so busy,” said Valentine Raiteri, a psychiatrist who works in New York.
Numerous studies have been conducted on the impact of Covid on mental health. A study, published in The Lancet medical journal in October, looked at the global prevalence of depression and anxiety disorders in 204 countries and territories in 2020 due to the Covid pandemic, according to the report.
Surprisingly, it found that mental health declined dramatically that year, even after an estimated 53 million additional cases of major depressive disorders and 76 million additional cases of anxiety disorders observed worldwide.
Experts explained that at the start of the pandemic in the spring of 2020, there was little understanding of how long the pandemic would last.
While there was a surprising amount of resilience during the first few months of the virus outbreak, Raiteri said that over time, the loss of daily social contact began to take its toll.
“There’s definitely a big impact on mental health from a long period of uncertainty and change that has left people very isolated and not knowing how to connect. Just being out in public and interacting very casually with strangers or slight acquaintances, that it is very regulatory, and the creation of norms and the affirmation of reality,” he said.
In addition, the pandemic meant that many people had to face problems in their lives that they had previously been able to avoid, such as alcoholism, relationship problems, isolation and loneliness, Natalie Bodart, a London-based clinical psychologist and director of The Bodart. Practice, she was quoted as saying.
“Our day-to-day serves as great defense mechanisms, we have many distractions that help us avoid things, for better or worse,” he said.
According to Katherine Preedy, a clinical psychologist based near London, “This is a whole generation (that has been affected by Covid), it’s two years of our lives, I think this is going to have a huge impact.”
“There may be first responders, people in hospitals, who are still in that survival mode, and then obviously there’s the emotional impact on people, entire industries that are lost, health (impact),” Preedy said.
He noted that mental health professionals are also under pressure to help a much larger number of patients.
Alex Desatnik, a consultant clinical psychologist in the UK, told CNBC that he believes it will take “at least a generation” to resolve the damage done to many young people by missed milestones and crucial developmental experiences, according to the report.
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