London, Europe Brief News – Since the start of the pandemic in 2019, people have become traumatised and under the stress of the Covid-19.
Ten of millions of lives have been lost, and the number continues to rise every day. The global economy, complex webs of international relations, individual mental health, the pitter-patter of everyday life: nothing has been spared in the viral storm.
When thinking about Covid-19, though, “trauma”, let alone “mass trauma”, may not be the first thing that springs to mind. Other frames of reference – economic, political, ecological, scientific – may seem more fitting.
And even within a mental health lens, “trauma” has hardly been the go-to in media discussions, which focus more on other problems like depression, anxiety, loneliness, and stress.
“If you look at what drives stress in our society … I’m talking about physiological and emotional stress in a human being. These are factors such as uncertainty, loss of control, lack of information, and conflict. And all of those have been exacerbated by the COVID crisis,” says trauma expert, Gabor Mate.
“So, on the one hand, we have the impact of the virus itself, and the threat that it poses to people, the lack of information, the uncertainty imposed by this pandemic. And then, on the other hand, of course, we have the public health measures that are very much debated, but they’ve isolated the people.”
How might we understand this mental fallout?
Trauma is a far subtler concept than many of us realise. It isn’t just a word for something extremely stressful.
It doesn’t always come from short, sharp shocks like car accidents, terrorist attacks, or firefights. And, trauma isn’t the same thing as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
What trauma is about is events and their effect on the mind. But what separates it from something merely stressful is how we relate to these events on a deep level.
After the pandemic ends, the effects of the mass trauma it has inflicted will linger across societies for years. How might we understand this mental fallout? And what does the science of trauma suggest that we should – and shouldn’t – do in order to heal?
