I'm Worried…Higher Education Isn't Focused at All on COVID-19's Psychological Toll

• Published in: The New England journal of higher education
• Main Author: Gross, Karen
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New England Board of Higher Education 09-03-2020
• Subjects: Anxiety; College Students; Coping; COVID-19; Crisis Management; Disease Control; Disease Incidence; Epidemiology; Fear; Higher Education; Hygiene; Mortality Rate; Pandemics; Psychological Patterns; Public Health; School Closing; Student Experience; Trauma; Well Being
• ISSN: 1938-5978

The spread of COVID-19, which happens easily in a campus setting, raises critical questions about what educational institutions can and should do. The raised issues are remarkably varied and call for all those involved in running institutions to approach these concerns thoughtfully and quickly, given the speed with which the virus is spreading, particularly in some states. Most of what is being written, according the author, focuses on the physical threats and risks of the coronavirus. However the physical protection of students has missed a focus on their psychological well-being and the traumatizing effect the threat of this virus can have--including re-triggering prior trauma. As some commentators have observed, there is a viral epidemic but also a fear pandemic. For the record, fear and anxiety and toxic stress produce trauma symptomology in some students and impair learning, social engagement and physical health (not from the virus itself). How higher education deals with the psychological impact of the COVID-19 situation is the critically important question for all educators, in addition to and side-by-side with the physical protections. One without the other will not help students. At the end of the day, according to the author, there needs to be both physical and mental well-being. Educators need to recognize first and then deal with the psychosocial impacts of the threat of the virus and school closings and disruptions on students. This requires understanding how the virus's threat can be traumatizing and lead to trauma symptomology. They also needs to be able to help students deal with their symptoms--not of the virus but of the trauma of the virus; and educators need to be able to see those symptoms--recognize them, deal with them, and ameliorate them.