It’s time we stopped kidding ourselves: ‘new normal’ is abnormal

I have published a new piece in Belfast Telegraph. 

In my work dealing with the impact of political violence, a constant challenge is reminding people that when addressing survivors’ needs during times of conflict, it is the social context that is often the primary stressor.

For example, as much as therapy for victims of conflict is useful, its value is limited if the conflict’s legacy persists and the social environment is destroyed. You also cannot think about conflict without understanding that it has differential impacts. In Northern Ireland, for example, the neighbourhoods with the highest conflict death rate are those with the highest levels of poverty.

When it comes to addressing the mental health impact of Covid-19, it seems we have a similar situation. We are acting as if the pandemic is only a medical problem, a behavioural issue (wear your mask, wash your hands, socially distance) and finally, a psychological question of coping mentally.

“Coronavirus — baby and mom” by https://www.vperemen.com  CC BY 2.0

The socio-environmental parts of the pandemic are under-emphasised, not to mention the political.

Yet, for many, their mental health in times of Covid-19 is not an issue of merely individual psychological coping mechanisms.

Mental well-being is undermined, for example, by losing your job, physical and psychological violence in the home during lockdowns, having a disability and living in cramped or unhealthy accommodation, among others.

Even those of us living in privilege are dealing with caring responsibilities, home-schooling, health issues and family and friends dying of Covid-19. All this in a context of 24-hour televised suffering and the Government failing to manage the process effectively.

Even for those lucky enough to have a good job, stress has been mounting over time, not decreasing. For many, the work experience (run from their homes) is like plugging holes in a sinking ship while continually eyeing the lifeboats.

Not to mention the daily struggles of healthcare and key workers on the frontline. There is no new normal, it is all profoundly abnormal. Many are confusing enforced haphazard adaptation with normalisation.

Of course, there are many individual actions that can help us cope: maintaining a routine; taking exercise; working on relaxation exercises such as mindfulness; getting plenty of sleep; ensuring you still connect with other people and, importantly, managing news and social media intake. I have used some of these myself. Problematically though, such interventions assume a standardised environmental context. Advising on actions such as relaxation, exercise and routinisation assumes you live in a safe, predictable and comfortable environment.

But like so much individual mental health advice, although well-meaning and helpful to some, it is acontextual.

Telling people to take care of their mental health while not talking about real-world needs is hollow.

Let’s stop pretending that bolstering individual psychological coping mechanisms can replace the need for environmental changes for some.

It is time for mental health professionals, employers and the Government to ask what people really need to improve their mental health during this pandemic. The answers they will get are not what they would want to hear.

The stress of those working while home-schooling and caring will be reduced by less work, not an online stress management workshop.

Some need proper working conditions and equipment. Others need professional guidance on maximising space in cramped homes and then their employer, or the state, supporting these changes.

In truth, an extra room in some homes would change some children’s lives more profoundly than anything else. Fixing the damp in some homes and ensuring adequate heating, let alone guaranteeing some families have enough food, would significantly impact on mental health.

Serious interventions such as removing an abusive partner, addressing alcoholism, loneliness, or those living with a disability in lockdown may be needed in other cases.

This may sound like a tall order, but the truth is real-life change is needed for many if we claim to want to take mental health seriously.

If we fuse home and work (as well as school and tertiary educational) life, we cannot hive off one from the other.

The realities Covid-19 has forced upon us and the problems it has aggravated are not something we only have to come to terms within our heads.

Psychological and social well-being are indivisible. What we are dealing with is a cocktail of problems at the intersection of Covid-19 health-related issues, the impact of lockdowns and social distancing, societal and political fragmentation and disparities in social and psychological need and support.

As hard as it is to consider in these gloomy times, we are being confronted with a reality that is beyond a short-term health crisis.

Instead of living in the hope of the vaccine, the next phase of pandemic management should target the diversity of need recognising how inequalities profoundly shape such conditions.

The advantage of such an approach is that post-pandemic recovery will be more sustainable and healthier for all. Otherwise, just as the legacy of conflict persists when we only remove the symptom of direct violence and do not address the underlying dynamics, varying levels of suffering will linger for years.

Published by Brandon Hamber, Belfast Telegraph, 23 March 2021. Also available on Medium.

The Case for a Degree in Twitterdemiology

In these challenging times, the University is looking to develop new courses. I suggest we offer a course in “Twitterdemiology”. The degree takes typically 2–3 months to complete, involves sharing, preferably uninformed, opinions on Twitter about the spread of diseases, preferably late at night and slightly drunk. A bonus is you never have to wear a mask during class. Involves some study in terms of looking at the occasional graph on a few websites and making a hasty conclusion. The degree is wholly part-time. The degree strongly appeals to those who like to think they are smarter than others for no good reason other than that social media now allows them to share their views in public unfiltered.

That said, the ability to look at a graph and understand what lines are going up or down is an essential criteria to join the class. Students will only be considered if they enjoy a good conspiracy theory and if they generally think experts are prone to exaggeration. Experience in the field of “Climate Change Denial” will stand you in good stead for this degree. Any former study in basic statistical knowledge is strongly discouraged. In fact, any study of the natural sciences is not considered essential for this course as science often makes things too complicated or produces anomalous results. This is not helpful. 

The beauty of the degree is that it is short and focused, and graduates will leave being clear in their opinions, which is the real benefit of not considering alternative science-based perspectives. We could roll the degree out to thousands of graduates. The course is online, opening an international market. It is also open access and appeals to all strata of society. Students could even take the course while stuck in residence over Christmas or at any time really. It is cost-effective as it takes fewer resources than the traditional 7–10 years it normally takes to become a competent epidemiologist (in fact the University could start a redundancy process for all those in the natural sciences saving millions).

"MERS Coronavirus Particle" by NIAID
is licensed under CC BY 2.0

The course requires limited input from the lecturers, if at all. Some assessment might be necessary for accreditation, but this could take the form of observation of students performance on Twitter and Facebook, and involves taking the odd screenshot. Students will get extra credit for sharing their opinion on other mediums, especially phone-in radio shows. Lecturers can perform their assessment duties without a mask and at home while watching TV in their underwear, thus meeting all health and safety requirements and decreasing staff stress. Such an assessment process does not preclude being slightly drunk at the time and will thus appeal to the lecturing staff immensely, meaning uptake in terms of staffing the new degree should be straightforward. The lecturer time to student ratio is excellent, meaning significant profits could be made through the cost of the official accreditation process alone.

I understand it has been proven that it now only takes a few months to become an epidemiologist and disprove the medical establishment without any formal training whatsoever, so you might ask why do the degree? But offering official recognition for the new science of Twitterdemiology, and a university backed degree, would no doubt appeal to many. I know additional risks may arise such as our new graduates could end up challenging the University on other matters such as many staff continuing to believe mistakenly in evolution and also staff promoting perverted ideas such as social justice and equality (occasionally even teaching students about Marxism, shame on them). In these challenging times, difficult choices need to be made and after all, do we not encourage critical thinking? Furthermore, if we remove all natural sciences from the University, and also stop all this leftist and free-thinking claptrap as the government advises, this problem may not arise.

Career paths are numerous for Twitterdemiologist. Students can go on to be prominent politicians and share their views with a broader audience. Maybe a cross over degree with policy and politics should be considered. Why not replace the Chief Medical Officer with one of our newly minted Twitterdemiologists? Importantly, the degree also allows you to obtain your qualification and practice Twitterdemiology in your own time or while holding down another job. Twitterdemiology thus complements the new government retraining scheme.

The cumulative positive effect on society, as we have already seen through the views of many amateur Twitterdemiologist on mask-wearing and lockdown strategies, has proven immensely helpful. The graphs on Coronavirus infection prove this. So we can build on that. Officially recognising the positive contribution of Twitterdemiology could only enhance the university claims concerning social impact. I strongly suggest we move at speed to formalise this new science.

Published by Brandon Hamber, 23 October 2020, Medium.com. Brandon Hamber is Professor of Peace Studies at Ulster University.