From Physical to Psychological Anxiety: That’s How Our Worries About the Coronavirus Change
The coronavirus is our company for some months now. Besides the physical impacts, the psychological consequences of the crisis get more and more into the focus. Uncertain future perspectives, economic effects, but also existential fears are shown through our mental state. We tell you how psychologic online counselling could help here and which are the most frequent topics in the counselling.
With which worries your clients mostly contact your psychologists in the corona crisis?
The current crisis is especially characterised by one thing: an enormously dynamic and by permanently new occurring information. Of course, the result of it is many negative emotions and you can tell by now, that these are changing during the process of the actual. While in the beginning, it was more about the question: “What can I do to avoid getting affected?“, the fears are now more towards the future: Which course this situation will take? How this will affect all of us? Will we make it with our economic situation and how can we deal with this long isolation? At first, many people were talking about the effects of the virus – now there is an increase in apprehensions about possible psychological effects on oneself, but also on loved ones.
Why does the current situation scare people? What is the mental challenge here? How can you deal with those feelings of fear, loneliness and so on?
Fear now ist the emotion, with which most people are confronted with the most. The main reason for it is, that this situation is completely new to us and that we do not have any coping strategies, or experiential values to rely on. Furthermore, the coronavirus is not fictional, but a real fear – a danger, which seems to wait invisibly behind every corner. If you are confronted with daily frightening and shocking news, in addition, you get into a circle of anxiety, which is hard to handle by yourself. The “forced isolation”, which is probably ahead, makes the social exchange even more difficult and it could just reinforce those feelings.
How does psychological (online) counselling help in this crisis? Why should people get help from a professional?
Exactly at this point psychological counselling could start – in times like this, the added value of online counselling is bigger than ever, because you do not have to leave your own four walls and it is possible to communicate directly from home with the psychologist. In contrast to many local offers, the waiting times are short, the contacting is simple and the counselling process is anonymous. This setting provides an opportunity to talk about your fears and insecurities – to sort your thoughts and to work out coping strategies, to learn how to handle negative emotions better. In further consequence, through the psychological help the likelihood, to not only get through this crisis well but also to get out of it even stronger and to build up new resources.