Psychological Intervention and COVID-19: What We Know So Far and What We Can Do
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Psychological Intervention and COVID‑19: What We Know So Far and What We Can Do Felix Inchausti1,5 · Angus MacBeth2 · Ilanit Hasson‑Ohayon3 · Giancarlo Dimaggio4
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract The coronavirus COVID-19 and the global pandemic has already had a substantial disruptive impact on society, posing major challenges to the provision of mental health services in a time of crisis, and carrying the spectre of an increased burden to mental health, both in terms of existing psychiatric disorder, and emerging psychological distress from the pandemic. In this paper we provide a framework for understanding the key challenges for psychologically informed mental health care during and beyond the pandemic. We identify three groups that can benefit from psychological approaches to mental health, and/or interventions relating to COVID-19. These are (i) healthcare workers engaged in frontline response to the pandemic and their patients; (ii) individuals who will experience the emergence of new mental health distress as a function of being diagnosed with COVID-19, or losing family and loved ones to the illness, or the psychological effects of prolonged social distancing; and (iii) individuals with existing mental health conditions who are either diagnosed with COVID-19 or whose experience of social distancing exacerbates existing vulnerabilities. Drawing on existing literature and our own experience of adapting treatments to the crisis we suggest a number of salient points to consider in identifying risks and offering support to all three groups. We also offer a number of practical and technical considerations for working psychotherapeutically with existing patients where COVID-19 restrictions have forced a move to online or technologically mediated delivery of psychological interventions. Keywords COVID-19 · Coronavirus · Psychotherapy · Digital therapy · Psychological interventions
Psychological Implications of Coronavirus The Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) is a newly emergent infectious disease caused by the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus, originated in December 2019 from mainland China, with initial * Felix Inchausti [email protected] 1
Department of Mental Health, Servicio Riojano de Salud, Logroño, Spain
2
Centre for Applied Developmental Psychology, Clinical and Health Psychology, School of Health in Social Science, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland
3
Department of Psychology, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat‑Gan, Israel
4
Centro Di Terapia Metacognitiva Interpersonale, Rome, Italy
5
Centro de Salud Espartero, Unidad de Salud Mental Infanto-Juvenil, Avda. Pío XII, 12 Bis, 26003 Logroño, La Rioja, Spain
cases emerging from the city of Wuhan, Hubei Province (CDCP 2020; Li et al. 2020). Although most individuals diagnosed with COVID-19 present with mild to moderate respiratory symptoms, a substantially minority present with severe symptomatology, with accompanying need for hospital
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