Some students in the class of 2020 may face traumatic loss due to coronavirus. Here’s how to help
Some students in the class of 2020 may face traumatic loss due to coronavirus. Here’s how to help
In a rapid response to COVID-19, universities moved classes online and brought campus life to a sudden halt for thousands of final-year undergraduates. The fallout from this has the potential to exacerbate the existential despair that many young people may be experiencing, or turn this into a traumatic loss.
Emerging adulthood has been defined as “a critical developmental stage.” Various pressures and challenges can adversely impact the emotional health of emerging adults. When combined with the transition into an uncertain future, existential despair can result.
In my work as a clinician and scholar, I am concerned with how various states of emotional distress have been regarded by psychiatry and the larger field of mental health as abnormal and in need of intervention and medical treatment — in other words, how normal feelings have been medicalized.
Existential despair is common. It can be about larger life tensions or thoughts about our place in the world. For some, it’s about ongoing questioning of the meaning of life.
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