Víctor Hernández Ramírez. The psychological effects of Covid-19-related confinement have been pointed out by the latest mental health studies[i]: anxiety, depression, sleeping disorders, alcohol and/or other drug abuse, perceptual disorders and concentration difficulties, feeling of isolation and loneliness, low motivation and negativity. On top of all these effects caused by confinement-related stress, there has been an increase in domestic violence[ii] and the negative perception of ageing and loneliness[iii].

These effects will not vanish at the end of confinement; we will most probably see a wide variety of symptoms associated with post-traumatic stress: anxiety episodes or states of anguish in different degrees, different types of depression, psychosomatic symptoms, expressions of phobias that make the return to “normal” life more difficult and general difficulties in reconstructing a sense of meaning for the future. (more…)