Mental Health in the Time of COVID-19

By: Adair Swayze

What a strange kind of community we find ourselves as Shelter in Place orders have gone into effect across Atlanta: at once cut off from one another physically and socially and also deeply bound together by our shared vulnerability and our duty to one another. On my daily walks in my neighborhood I am encountering so many neighbors out, walking or sitting on their porches. There is physical distance, but also more waving and more eye contact, more curious questions.

At Atlanta Counseling Center, we have been having conversations with each other and with our clients about how our felt sense of community is deep and meaningful right now, but we are having to get very creative about how to engage with one another from a responsible distance. Dr. Dan Allender said it well when he said in a recent podcast:

“How do I want to be in the midst of this growing global tragedy and trauma, and how am I going to engage the people close, near, and far in a way in which our hearts really, even in distancing, actually are closer together than what we were before?”

One of the ways we would like to contribute to the community right now as counselors is to engage more intentionally in our online community. As Shelter in Place orders have gone into place, We are offering virtual therapy options for whoever needs it, of course, but we also want to offer some words through our blog about how to care for ourselves right now as counselors and also as fellow humans. We hope you will join us over the coming weeks and months as we try to stay present to ourselves during a time of such great uncertainty.