The current COVID-19 pandemic is making many people more anxious than usual. What are some effective strategies for dealing with these increased levels of anxiety? Jane Rubin, Ph.D. has some suggestions.
How are Your Clients Managing During This Time?
It varies from person to person. Most of my patients aren’t primarily worried about getting the virus themselves. I think that’s because the Bay Area instituted shelter-in-place orders early and most people are complying with them, so we’ve been able to flatten the curve pretty effectively. But there’s a lot of anxiety about the future. Will people be able to keep their jobs? What will the economy look like over the next few years? When will kids be able to go back to school? There are so many unknowns right now, and those unknowns make people anxious.
How Are You Helping People Deal with These Anxieties?
There are some important differences between helping people with the anxieties caused by the virus and the anxieties they usually experience. For example, I work with a lot of people who have social anxiety. Most of their anxiety is focused on things that haven’t happened and aren’t going to happen—that they’ll be shamed or ridiculed or rejected by other people. With those patients, a lot of the work in therapy is designed to reduce the fears they have about things that are very unlikely to happen.COVID-19 is happening. The disease is horrible and there’s no vaccine or cure in sight. People are already suffering terrible consequences of the epidemic—unemployment, hunger, and a very uncertain future. So, the anxieties most people are experiencing now are based in real events that we’re all experiencing together. Helping people with these anxieties requires a different approach.
Are People Struggling to Feel in Control?
Definitely. Shoppers don’t know if they’ll be able to find what they need. Walkers and runners don’t know if other people will observe social distancing. Parents with young children don’t know if they’ll be able to get their work done from home. Many aspects of our lives feel very out of control right now.At the risk of getting too political in a blog post, about therapy, I’ll also say that people’s anxiety levels are directly related to the effectiveness of our leadership. In California, we’re fortunate to have leadership at the state level that has been very clear about what we need to do to combat the virus. But there’s been no leadership at the national level. I think this dramatically increases people’s anxieties that no one is in control of a disastrous situation. I can’t tell you how many people I know have said to me that they wish we had a president who did nightly fireside chats like the ones Franklin Roosevelt did during the Second World War—conversations that would make us feel that we’re all in this together, that the people in charge know what they’re doing, and that there are ways we can all contribute to making things better.
Do You Have Any Suggestions for Those Worried About the Future?
I think the best we can do is to stay grounded in the present as much as possible. None of us knows what the future holds. It’s very easy to catastrophize and convince ourselves that the worst-case scenarios are the ones that are going to materialize.I recently read an interview with Natan Sharansky, who survived many years in a Soviet prison camp. He said that, if he had spent his time thinking about when he would get out of prison, he wouldn’t have survived the experience. He didn’t know when, or if, he would ever get out. So, he spent his time playing chess games in his head and doing other things that would keep him engaged in the present moment. He tried not to think about the future.While we don’t know when this pandemic is going to end, we do know it will end at some point. In the meantime, I think self-care—getting outside, talking with friends, reading, meditating, enjoying your hobbies—is really important. The other thing I think is really important is finding ways to be of service to other people. I can’t tell you the number of people I know who have learned to sew masks and are distributing them to people who need them. You can donate to your local food bank or to the many community groups that are raising money for local businesses and their workers. You can do political work, like writing letters to get out the vote for the November election. People are feeling so isolated during this time. Doing things that remind you that you’re part of something larger than yourself is the best antidote to isolation, anxiety, and a sense of powerlessness.Click to learn more about anxiety symptoms and treatment with Dr. Jane Rubin.Jane Rubin, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist in Berkeley, California. She works with individuals in Berkeley, Oakland, the East Bay, and the greater San Francisco Bay Area who are struggling with depression and anxiety. She also specializes in working with people who are trying to find meaning and direction in their lives.