Covid-19 - Psychological research and treatment

Moved post

Familiar marketing stunt in the Guardian just now:

"It doesn’t stop when the virus is under control and there are few people in hospital. You’ve got to fund the long-term consequences."

From the President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
https://www.theguardian.com/society...hreat-to-mental-health-since-second-world-war

 

I agree to a degree. There will be some people and families who will suffer the mental consequences for a long time down the road. Loved ones lost, not able to say goodbye to them. Long striven-for livelihoods destroyed. Etc. One of my grandfathers was pretty comfortably off, albeit by no means rich, but the Wall Street Crash took it all from him, and he never really recovered from that.

They may be secondary consequence of Covid, but to the people affected that is academic.

 

yes as there probably were/are after all wars and disasters, but I doubt that a course of CBT will solve it.
The efforts would be better spent on trying to support people in practical ways that will make a difference.

 

I don't see any mention of CBT in the article. It seems to simply be saying there will be many people who will suffer mental health consequences and that many of those will need help. I'm not going to criticise an article for some indiscretion that it has no evidence of it exhibiting. I've learnt in my life that people you invariably disagree with, can sometimes show considerable wisdom; and the converse of course. Mental health is real, and the need for psychiatric help is sometimes real - proper psychiatric help that is.

 

Mental health in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic: cross-sectional analyses from a community cohort study

1. Ru Jia1,
2. Kieran Ayling1,
3. Trudie Chalder2,
4. Adam Massey1,
5. Elizabeth Broadbent3,
6. Carol Coupland1,
7. Kavita Vedhara1

full paper
https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/10/9/e040620.full

 

Hair samples capture Covid’s stressful toll

https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/vision/hair-samples-capture-covids-stressful-toll

 

Just to update - this now seems to have been removed, but Wayback has a copy or two: https://web.archive.org/web/20200722020729/https://www.eapm.eu.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/EACLPP_Turner_MUS_2002.pdf

 

It's utterly sickening that she claimed that some people with idiopathic illnesses "do not even want to be cured" and enjoy "secondary gains".The most depressing thing about this document is just how out of touch many doctors are. They have no interest whatsoever in listening to patient experience. You ask a BPS doctor about ME, LC, or any (as of 2023) unexplained condition and you get:

• It's just somaticized depression
• Patients love to collect diagnoses
• Patients subconsciously want to be sick
  
• Secondary gains
• Excessive worry about or focus on symptoms

You ask people who've actually suffered these illnesses and you usually hear:

• Previously healthy before onset
• Can affect anyone, even elite athletes
  
• Often rapid onset
• Completely inconsistent with deconditioning or fear of activity. As someone said in "Fatigue can shatter a person" by Ed Yong, "Why would we all just stop?"
• Extremely low quality of life
• Having an illness or symptoms isn't the main source of emotional distress, poor quality of life, stigma, and discrimination are
• Instead of secondary gains, there are "secondary losses." People lose careers, homes, friends, family, spouses, hobbies, intimacy, and often, their dignity.