Chris Cheers, a psychologist, has started to see the emotional reactions to the Covid pandemic in terms of a type of grief after 18 months.
It is a collective loss, felt by all people at once. However, it can also be deeply personal. Our losses are different just like our experiences.
Many have lost their loved ones through Covid or in other ways, and were unable to attend funerals. Some people have suffered a loss in their health due to long Covid or a long-term income loss or loss of work. Both the virus and restrictions had a disproportionate impact on marginalized communities, with more severe consequences.
Cheers says it is a complicated and ambiguous loss that can be difficult to deal with.
It can be difficult to accept losses that are so complex and ambiguous. You are stuck in the grief and in the distress.
There are no longer any support networks to help us through our grief. We are prohibited from gathering together and seeking comfort from one another in lockdown states. Even if we can reach out to one another, those who are capable of offering support are often grieving their own losses.
Cheers: I believe that people's ability to support one another is starting to decline.
Scott Morrison, Australia's prime minister, warned that the pandemic could last for six months when Australia was placed in lockdown in March 2020. He was wrong. The pandemic continues, and the mental as well as physical effects of living in it are still accumulating.
This is because lockdowns have a negative impact on brain health and mental health. All the losses that lockdowns cause are cumulative and have a cumulative effect on stress. This cumulative stress can make people lose sight of the possibility.
Our clients need us, and our waitlists are lengthy. It's not an easy place to be Chris Cheers.
Last year's Melbourne 112-day lockdown was marked by a sense that there was something more to it than the restrictions. We were locking down to protect elderly people and to save our community. We were closing the doors one more time.
The Medicare Benefits Schedule data shows that there was a spike in demand for services in Melbourne's second wave lockdown, which was not replicated in other states.
Cheers says that this year's Delta variant raced against the vaccine rollout, winning, and that sense of purpose was broken to be replaced with frustration and anger.
If that does not change, it can then move to hopelessness or apathy. He says that Im seeing this more in many of my clients right now.
His waitlist is now longer than ever. Clients were pleased to hear that the Medicare-subsidised psychologist appointments will be doubled from five to ten. However, the number and quality of psychologists have not increased.
Private psychologists are not eligible for Medicare rebates. They must be able pay the difference. It is not more affordable to double the sessions.
Rapid reskilling was also necessary for the transition to telehealth. Cheers has been providing one-on-one therapy via Zoom in his spare bedroom in Melbourne for 18 months. This replaces years of experience in reading body language and a new skill in making eye contact using a webcam.
He says that if you make eye contact on video with someone, it won't feel like eyecontact because you are looking at them on the screen and not the camera. To make eye contact, I must make eye contact with the camera. At the moment, I feel like I'm doing therapy with a green beam.
Psychologists are also affected by the pandemic and face the same restrictions and lockdowns as their clients. They have a path to understanding and empathy. But it has also made them very dry.
He says that psychologists are exhausted right now, but they all need us. Our clients are in desperate need, and our waitlists are lengthy. It can be very difficult to realize that clients are in dire need of your support, and to also know that you have the capacity to offer it.
