Il Covid-19 e la salute mentale. Una riflessione sull'impatto della pandemia sulla popolazione generale e sugli operatori sanitari

Abstract: this is a reflection on our last two years of cohabitation with this virus, which in a few weeks managed to call into question all our certainties and automatisms, causing us to go back a few centuries, to the time of the Black Death, with social distancing, quarantine and experimental treatments. We have all experienced a compromission of our 'secure base' and a substantial interruption of our habitual and comforting 'routine'. The Covid-19 pandemic forced us into a difficult challenge, asking us to adapt to a reality we had never experienced, where the only sure thing seemed to be the great uncertainty that the whole planet was experiencing. Some of us, especially the (psychiatric) high-risk people and health workers who by profession found themselves thrown into the front line in the fight against an invisible and highly contagious virus, for which there was no treatment or prevention, are paying the highest price. In the light of these considerations, the history of the virus was outlined, and studies investigating the impact of the pandemic on the mental health of both the general population and health workers were examined, with a reflection on how to intervene in this context by calling on external and environmental resources and on our internal strength (resilience) and personal resources.