Category: COVID-19

In all my studies over the years about the brain and trauma, I am repeatedly impressed by how much we are dependent on our social experiences to maintain our mental health. Here are a few quotes from one of my favorite authors, Louis Cozolino, who describes in his book The Neuroscience of Psychotherapy: Healing the…

Something I think has become clear for almost all of us as we continue to experience the pandemic: our relation-ships are our lifelines. We need to know we have people in our circles who we can connect with even as we figure out creative ways to do that: by phone, Zoom,  in situations where we…

I was surprised and maybe even comforted, if that’s the right word, with all the research on the history of pandemics, and how much they have been a part of humankind. It turns out that epidemics that became pandemics (a pandemic occurs when an epidemic spreads beyond a country’s borders) have occurred since humankind made a shift from scattered and nomadic tribes that were…

There are so many images on the news today showing the horrific impact on people experiencing the Covid virus, especially the new variant. There are the images of the hospitals with people on ventilators, people in body bags, distressed faces and voices of the staff trying to provide medical care while being overwhelmed themselves with…

Just about the time we thought we had turned the corner on the pandemic, along comes a surge in Covid cases because of the new variant of the virus and the large number of citizens still not vaccinated. It seems like we are not out of the woods yet and in fact we may be…

Recently a friend was sharing how he no longer seemed to feel joy about anything in life. He felt that it wasn’t the same as depression but more about everything seeming blah. “Where did my joy go?” became his question.  Some research led me to any interesting possible diagnosis: Anhedonia. According to the Explore Health website “Anhedonia simply means ‘without pleasure,’ according to…

In this highly emotional year and a half, in some ways our emotions have ruled our world, overriding our more logical, unemotional thinking that takes place in our cortex. For fans of the original Star Trek, we have been less like Mr. Spock and more like the very emotional Scotty or Dr. McCoy.  When we are highly emotional, we are less able to…

In last week’s blog I invited readers to consider how many of us are experiencing the symptoms of burnout as a result of all the stresses caused by the pandemic. I think it’s pretty clear that many of us have the symptoms of emotional, mental and physical exhaustion along with other feelings including disengagement, impatience and self-criticism for…

We all have heard how much the pandemic has placed huge amounts of stress on individuals and families. Another way to appreciate the impact of all this stress is to consider the signs and symptoms of burnout. According to Psychology Today, “Burnout is a state of emotional, mental, and often physical exhaustion brought on by…