How might we experience the threat of COVID-19?
Dr. Jo Stubley
In the following clip we asked Dr. Jo Stubley, Head of the Tavistock Trauma Service, what makes the current situation with COVID-19 particularly distressing from a trauma perspective?This is an additional video, hosted on YouTube.
- What we want to do when faced with a loss is slow down, mourn, and re-group
- What the body does when faced with a threat is speed up, act, stay vigilant, and look out for danger
- When we can neither remove a threat nor mourn, what we seek is security and reliability in routines and relationships
Fight-flight response
In Dr. Stubley’s next video, she explains that our responses to fear and threat involve both the mind and body and so making divisions between the two can be unhelpful. Fluctuations in attention, mood, energy, or sleep difficulties are far from being “all in our head”.What we commonly see in response to threats is something called the fight-or-flight response. We asked Dr. Stubley, what happens to our bodies when they go into fight-or-flight mode?This is an additional video, hosted on YouTube.
Can you relate to this fight-flight response? Have you noticed any of these experiences during COVID-19? Feel free to share your thoughts below.
COVID-19: Psychological Impact, Wellbeing and Mental Health

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