Psychotherapy in the Time of Pandemic: Mental Health at the Heart of Public Health
Rome, January 28-30, 2021
ITALIAN SOCIETY OF PSYCHOTHERAPY (SIPSIC)
ITALIAN FEDERATION OF PSYCHOTHERAPY ASSOCIATIONS (FIAP)
NATIONAL COORDINATION OF PRIVATE PSYCHOTHERAPY SCHOOLS (CNSP)
The Conference will be held electronically
With the patronage of: FNOMCeO, OMCeO Rome, CNOP,
Order of Psychologists of Lazio and ENPAP
Also requested from: ENPAM
The COVID pandemic has seriously affected many countries around the world and both direct experience and a now extensive scientific documentation have shown that in addition to the complex physical illness, there is a marked involvement of the psychic and psychosocial sphere, both associated with the initial and later stages.
Mental suffering, which mainly affected the weakest subjects and those who suffered from previous problems, manifested itself on different levels:
anxiety, fear, distress, sleep disturbances, demoralization / depression, suicides, high stress of front-line personnel, are just some of the main effects documented by the international studies available so far.
Last March, as a response to the sudden impact, some first psychological support interventions for the general population and for health care workers under stress, in various countries, as a first immediate response, were spontaneously set up by companies and associations of psychotherapy, sometimes improvised but still organized. Attention is now turned to the 'next waves' and their consequences, with marked concern also for the secondary effects at the psychosocial level and economic crises predicted at a distance.
The Italian Psychotherapy Societies and Associations, with thousands of professionals, often linked to the four-year Specialization Schools, recognized by the MIUR, together with the Departments of Mental Health and University Polyclinics, as well as other structures involved in assistance, wish with this national Conference to focus on the main points and a possible design of synergistic intervention, to also put Mental Health among the intervention objectives for the suffering and needs of the population and health workers involved in the fight against the pandemic.
In summary, the objective of the Conference is to evaluate issues of criticality for mental health, the resources that public and private psychotherapy can put in place to help against the pandemic and its consequences, including future ones.