Mental health implications of COVID-19 quarantine and the experience of online couple therapy

The unprecedented impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the physical, social, economic, and mental health of populations around the world is still unfolding. The impact of previous twenty-first-century coronavirus outbreaks such as SARS in 2001 had been the subject of studies showing characteristic reactions to the outbreak dependent on how “at risk” a population was of becoming infected, as well as whether they were still able to work (Chan et al., 2016). At the community level anxiety disorders rose, as did panic buying, fear of contact with others, and stigmatisation of people who had become ill. People who were ill were much more likely to suffer subsequent mental health problems such as post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, somatoform pain disorder, and panic attacks than people who hadn'tbeen ill. Healthcare staff were particularly affected by their high rates of illness and were found to be suspicious and hostile towards others, as well as feeling socially isolated and distressed. Chan et al. (2016) undertook a pilot study into the impact of SARS on the intimate relational lives of Chinese health professionals and found that sexual life between partners was affected with some wanting more sex (as found in research into other major disasters) and others wanting less. Friendships and family life were also affected, with a conflict between needing emotional closeness but wanting physical distance (because of the risk of contracting the illness). The authors noted that Chinese society tended to be more socially oriented than Western societies that tended to be more individualistic and wondered how the two cultures might respond differently. Zhang et al. (2020) brought this research up-to-date in their pre-publication research into the impact of the current COVID-19 outbreak on working adults from sixty-four cities in China, one month into the growing pandemic as populations were in lockdown. They found again that the severity of risk, as well as both the capac