The psychology of pandemic divides us socially into four strata within two groups;

• Group 1: Individual – Parent

• Group 2: Young – Old

Parents

Parents face additional burdens, stresses, and anxieties beyond the disease and its economic financial impact, which is also elevated in importance.  They must actively arrange for and solve child supervision on a daily basis in addition to performing their work related roles, and if they shift to work-at-home then the demands of parenting a child also at home because of school closure intrudes upon and prevents any work from being accomplished.

Will employers in a post-pandemic world favor individual workers over parents in a work-at-home altered world of social distancing?  School closures and school-density as a source of spread for future pandemics will also need to be considered in a pandemic aware world.

The financial and economic anxieties and stresses are also elevated for parents because of the increased responsibility for providing for the children’s physical and emotional needs.  The financial costs of parenting and the spread of parents across economic strata means that many struggling families will now face financial catastrophe and will require movement into the social safety net.

Individuals

Many of the non-parent individuals are in the age-range of seeking to establish their careers and their economic footing, possibly in preparation for starting a family.  While individual paths will differ, a substantial number of the individual responders to pandemic will be younger individuals entering careers and college-age young adults. The parent cohort, on the other hand, will likely have established jobs prior to the pandemic, and it is likely that these jobs will resume post-pandemic. 

However, for the young-adult individuals the economic consequences of pandemic and global recession will potentially be much more impactful, so they will also carry a substantial future-oriented anxiety surrounding uncertainty.

Young

Children will be impacted differently based on their age-related developmental phase.

Early Childhood:  These children will be highly sensitive to the disrupting emotional impact of pandemic on the parent.  The parent’s chronic stress and anxiety compounded by decreased social support and social isolation will impose stresses and challenges on the child’s development.  A higher frequency of child “protest behavior” in response to increased parental distraction from stress and anxiety is likely to occur. 

It is troubling to consider that the anticipated higher frequency of child “protest behavior” in response to increased parental stress and emotional unavailability will then encounter parents with diminished emotional capacity from their own stresses and anxieties. This is a volatile mix for angry-hostile parenting, increasing concerns for child maltreatment.

This will be an important area for active mental health outreach through telepsychology offering psychological and parenting support from cyberspace.

Middle Childhood: The school-age years are the developmental time of turning out, establishing the foundational social rhythms of social bonding. The focus of the child is on mastery, of academics, of sports, of music, of popularity.  The social dimension is forming its ground that will be expanded on during the adolescent years – which social group are you “in” – academic, sport, social, music, theater, scouting, activity, or not.

Adolescents: The adolescent years are fully turning out into peer bonding and peer social relationships, or not.  Through the changes of puberty from child into young adult, sexuality and new social domains of self-identity develop. Adolescence is also the platform period for launching into the next phase of young adulthood – either college or career.

There will be major disruptions to social bonding, yet restrictions are likely to be ignored so strong is the biological pull while the frontal lobes of foresight and anticipating consequences are still only emerging. The primary impact to this generation will be at college or in locating a job. 

The economic downturn will be difficult for new entry-level young adults with just high school, it will be tough for college grads.  For those that choose to go to college after graduating, anxieties about the post-graduation job market will predominate.

Elderly

The elderly face two direct challenges, nearly equal in severity; death and isolation – waiting alone in the world to die.  The two largest developmental challenges in our elderly are health (death) and social isolation… being alone.

Both of these are found with pandemic.  If the elderly go out to engage, they are vulnerable to the virus and can die.  If they isolate and practice social distancing – in cooperation with their families who stop face-to-face visitation – they are alone – a living death.

This is another immensely vulnerable population for the complex trauma of pandemic.  It will also be important for professional psychology to make active outreach to this population through telepsychology and cyberspace.

Internet Psychology

The emerging role of professional psychology afforded through the Internet will become increasingly important with resolving the complex emotional and psychological trauma created by pandemic.  Emotions come and go, they serve to orient us to the task at hand.  The experience becomes traumatic when it is overwhelming.

Appropriate and sensitive responding from professional psychology, and through to parents and children facing their unique challenges, will be essential to the emotional processing of anxiety, sadness, and frustration, creating opportunities for both personal and societal growth with ourselves and with our children.

Craig Childress, Psy.D.
Clinical Psychologist, PSY 18857