COVID-19 and Mental Health

Outlook

A Second Wave?

The future course of the pandemic is impossible to predict. But if a second wave does strike, will the nation accept another lockdown?

Dr. Elinor McCance-Katz, a psychiatrist and the U.S. assistant secretary of health and human services for mental health and substance abuse, recently said this should be avoided, due to the severe mental health effects caused by such measures.40 Alvord would like to see creative alternatives to lockdowns.

More widespread use of virtual therapies is likely, especially “now that everyone's given telehealth a test drive” and found that it works, says Duckworth of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Geoffrey Boyce, the CEO of InSight + Regroup, a telepsychiatry provider, thinks most regulatory barriers will remain lifted but some services will require in-person treatment. Alvord predicts that about 30 to 40 percent of her clients eventually will use telehealth but says some services, such as group therapy for teens, are more difficult to provide virtually.

Even if telehealth becomes more common, it cannot solve the national shortage of mental health clinicians, says Marques, of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America. She would like to see the workforce reinvented, with paraprofessionals trained in such duties as teaching patients cognitive behavioral therapy skills, a practical, goal-oriented form of psychotherapy, to help manage their symptoms.

The pandemic likely will cause long-lasting mental health consequences for a segment of Americans, says Palo Alto University's Brown. “They are going to be devastated and never recover in their lifetimes,” she says. While another segment of the population will emerge relatively unscathed, she says, the “vast majority” of those affected will recover but will have “ups and downs, good days and bad.”

Alvord says that “for the most part we're resilient as humans.” But she adds: “It depends on how many adversities you face. The more you face, the harder it is.”

Go to top
Go to Pro/Con

[40] Douglas Belkin, “Nation's Top Mental-Health Official Warns Against a Second Lockdown,” The Wall Street Journal, May 21, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/y9vdlzx4.