Covid's 'behavioural shift in society': Unprocessed trauma, social isolation affecting today's youth

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00:00Five years ago today, France's president announced that the country and its people were at war.

00:05The aggressor, COVID-19, the weapons used to fight it, lockdowns, masks and eventually vaccines.

00:12For months on end, people lived isolated lives, making sure to keep more than two metres apart.

00:17Over the space of three years, the virus said to have killed over 7 million people worldwide.

00:22Many still left suffering symptoms of long COVID.

00:25And then there's the psychological impact.

00:27To take a look at where we are on that, we can speak to consultant psychologist Dr Heather Sequeira.

00:31Thanks so much for your time and joining us here on France 24.

00:35It's five years since, you know, well, the lockdown here in France

00:39was put in place five years since the UN declared it a pandemic.

00:44Is COVID still impacting people's mental health today?

00:49Unfortunately, it is, yes.

00:51We have a surge in anxiety and depression.

00:54That surge during the pandemic, and it really hasn't gone down a lot since then.

01:01Really complicated reasons.

01:02We can't pinpoint it to one thing, but we're looking at a behavioural shift in society

01:09that's still operating now.

01:11Things like alcohol use.

01:13We've got social isolation.

01:15People are more lonely.

01:16It's particularly affecting young people and children.

01:21And there's still a lot of unprocessed trauma from that time

01:25because people couldn't process it properly at the time.

01:28And at the time, I mean, we ended up being afraid of fellow humans and,

01:32you know, how to interact with them.

01:34Is that still lingering?

01:35I mean, you see people going back to concerts, going back on flights.

01:39So I think it affects certain groups more than others.

01:42So the people going to concerts, maybe less so.

01:45But I think younger people in particular,

01:47particularly people who were babies at the time of trauma,

01:50they missed out on core stages of their development.

01:54And the same with younger people, teenagers,

01:56people who were meant to be making that life stage

01:59of breaking away from their parents a little bit,

02:02mixing with friends and other people exploring the world,

02:05really missed out on that.

02:07And we're really seeing a lack of confidence,

02:09a lack of social confidence and increasing levels of avoidance in those groups.

02:15And what can be done to help people in those situations today?

02:20I think we need to put mental health as a priority

02:24because our mental health services were struggling

02:27even at the time of COVID and now they are completely quaking.

02:31So there's long, long waiting lists for help,

02:34particularly, again, for children and young people.

02:37And again, if people have to sit on waiting lists for therapy as children,

02:42they're again missing out on key stages of development.

02:45So we really need to prioritise that.

02:48That's my number one thing.

02:49And then getting away from screens as well would be another,

02:52helping people interact face to face a lot more.

02:55Yeah, people need to push themselves out of that isolation,

02:59perhaps comfort zone as it is now,

03:01into pushing themselves to face their fear and meet people.

03:05Absolutely. We've become too reliant on digital means.

03:08So we're hiding behind a screen a lot of the time.

03:11So again, it's key people. It's not everybody.

03:15But we really need to help people stretch out,

03:17as you say, outside their comfort zone.

03:19Because even that daily interaction at the shop,

03:21I believe, is vital for our mental health.

03:24It's really vital.

03:25Just that smile or sharing a word with somebody,

03:29a small conversation, a small act of kindness,

03:32such as opening a door for somebody,

03:33can make such a difference in people's lives.

03:36You mentioned there the lack of resources

03:39in terms of what's available in terms of mental health.

03:42But part of the COVID pandemic was the loss of faith,

03:45if you like, or the falling down of our systems.

03:49Is that something that people, you know,

03:51has impacted how people live today?

03:53Absolutely. We have less trust in authority.

03:57We have less trust in science as a population.

04:01And there is also economic,

04:03ongoing economic costs from the pandemic,

04:06which are affecting people in terms of their job security

04:10and how they think about the future.

04:12So all that's coming into it as well.

04:14So we're looking at a multifaceted problem

04:16with many different strands to it.

04:18So it's not one simple solution that we can put in place here,

04:22but we need to be looking at it as a whole.

04:24Now, you're coming to us from the United Kingdom,

04:27which reacted slightly different than France did

04:30when it comes to lockdowns.

04:31They went into lockdown mode a good bit later.

04:34A lot of people say that that was

04:35because there was a lack of trust from the government

04:37in the individual people to work together.

04:40Is that how you see it?

04:43I'm not sure.

04:44I don't know if it was that much later.

04:45I think it was the 20th of March we went into lockdown.

04:49So it wasn't very much later.

04:51But, and do you think that overall,

04:54I mean, in Ireland, we called it cocooning.

04:56In France, it was a lockdown.

04:58So, and we were declared to be at war.

05:00Do you think that how governments handled

05:03the pandemic had an impact on how people live through it

05:07and currently are today?

05:08Very much, yeah.

05:09There was a lot of fear-based messaging,

05:12which helped people stay indoors.

05:14It perhaps aided what the government wanted us to do,

05:18but it has now left us being more avoidant as a society.

05:22And we all know that facing our fears,

05:24pushing ourselves out of our comfort zones

05:26is the way to get over fears.

05:28And unfortunately, I think we are kind of still stuck

05:31in an avoidant reaction.

05:33So we're stepped back from things that scare us

05:36rather than moving into them.

05:38And that increasing social isolation

05:40is one of the things that has fallen out from that.

05:44And as you say, it comes as well

05:45with our increasing reliance on media to connect to people.

05:49Have you seen any positive impact over this pandemic?

05:52A lot of people at the time said

05:54the fact that it forced them to take

05:56a slower style of life, of living,

06:00did make them change what their priorities were,

06:02gave them time to reflect

06:04on how they're living their lives.

06:06I think it did at the time,

06:07but I wonder if we've lost quite a bit of that now,

06:10because we're now back into that rush,

06:12more, better, best kind of mentality.

06:16So I'm not sure that that's still the case.

06:19I think one positive is that we are now able

06:22to use remote means such as we're doing right now

06:25to communicate with each other.

06:27But we need to be really careful

06:28that we don't over-rely on that.

06:30Yeah, that isolation having such a wide impact

06:33on our world in more ways than one.

06:35Dr. Hezosker, thank you so much

06:36for joining us here on France 24.

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