As the United States rapidly approaches the one year mark since the nation seemingly came to a halt due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it is without a doubt that across our country and world, things have changed. Whether it be physically in the way we’ve grown accustomed to not leaving our homes without masks or emotionally with the ongoing feeling of loss: loss of normalcy, loss of loved ones, and some days loss of hope for a foreseeable end.
Yet, deemed by TIME Magazine as 2020's “Guardians of the Year”, frontline workers have helped us prevail -- including mental health professionals.
According to a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), during June 24–30, 2020, U.S. adults reported considerably elevated adverse mental health conditions associated with COVID-19. Younger adults, racial/ethnic minorities, essential workers, and unpaid adult caregivers reported having experienced disproportionately worse mental health outcomes, increased substance use and elevated suicidal ideation. These challenges have pushed conversations about mental health to the forefront.
The pandemic has given an increased spotlight on the accessibility of mental health services in the country, and many are seeking out services for the first time. While personal counselors at Shorehaven Behavioral Health spoke of an “excitement” that people were tapping into tending to their own psychological health, the surge in need is frequently met with the price of therapist burn out. The reality has become that in this new hybrid of work and home life, the line separating the two worlds is fading.
“I think what is very difficult is that every person on our planet is experiencing some level of loss and grief whether it's the loss of a loved one to COVID, for other medical illnesses, or whether it's the loss of a job or the loss of what's normal,” said counselor Kristin Holmes. “I think that on a society level, we're really kind of missing that.”
“I think we definitely are on the frontlines in a very different way. We don't have the exposure that traditional healthcare facility workers may have, however, we work with five to 10 individuals a day four or five days a week who are all going through their own stressors and struggles related to this which can be very mentally taxing,” said counselor Todd Thomas.
“A lot of people have realized they need mental health services and we're supplying that. But also I feel like, in the midst of this, a lot of us are also realizing we need it too,” said Niajcia Brookshire, another counselor at Shorehaven.
Shorehaven is a team of licensed psychologists that offer counseling services for mental health, substance abuse and family counseling, many of their clients being low-income families. Some of the therapists offer in-home counseling, which requires the therapists to give services in their clients’ homes versus in an office setting. Once Gov. Tony Evers enacted the stay-at-home order, the counselors initially felt like they were in a scramble to provide care.
“It was shocking,” said Brookshire. “During that period in March and April, a lot of the clients that I was seeing were recently out of the hospital. So we went from seeing them in person two times a week for an hour and a half to two hours to nothing at all because insurance hadn't worked out virtual (services). So we were pretty much in limbo for about a week and a half. We didn't really know what we were doing so clients didn't have access to therapy mental health services.”
After Shorehaven made the move to 100 percent virtual sessions, the counselors were tasked with finding ways to foster attentiveness and connection with clients through screens, many of whom were children.
“Trying to keep them engaged was very, very hard at times, like difficult. And it's not something that I went to school for. I went to school to see clients in person. That's what I had trained for, like techniques and everything. So I wasn't prepared for that drastic change initially,” said Brookshire.
While virtual sessions became customary and counselors received resources to adapt their methods to the shift, Thomas says that clinicians and clients alike are still dealing with the effects of continued isolation. As expected, it hasn’t been easy for clients, especially children: there has been the adjustment to virtual schooling, lack of individual space and dealing with the grief of life pre-pandemic.
Yet there have been instances where the counselors have seen clients excel. Prior to the coronavirus outbreak, one of Brookshire’s elementary clients struggled with connecting with classmates in person.
“When I was seeing her in person, she would have a hard time engaging and just like talking. I don't know if it was just a lot that we were in person with her and it was a lot of pressure. But now that we transitioned to virtual, she's very much engaged and she seems more confident in her skin,” said Brookshire. “She's been learning better in school and connecting with her classmates, whereas before, she was known to disrupt classrooms.”
In the era of continuous pivots, these kinds of stories help Thomas find hope.
“Truthfully, I think this whole process has been just a really strong beacon of hope and underlying our resiliency. The ability that we've all been able to adapt and have our lives as we knew them totally uprooted and...create an environment that fosters connection and supports,” said Thomas.
For Holmes, the pandemic has been a lesson of self-care in the form of controlling what is within your reach.
“We don't have a finite date...And that's what gives me hope in this is that I don't have to know. I don't have to feel stalled like the rest of our world now,” said Holmes. “And so that's kind of the hope that I carry to my clients too, is that it's hard. We look for little things around us that are progressing rather than focusing on everything that's not progressing right now because I think that is where we find the confidence to dig in and keep working.”