Covid-19 is an unprecedented event that is understandably generating anxiety for many. As a therapist working through this period, I feel it is important to separate out rational vs. irrational fear and stress, and share some techniques and advice to help weather the coming weeks and months of upheaval.

Ordinarily when people talk about stress and anxiety, therapists and counsellors can point to it being an error in thinking, something that feels catastrophic and although not ideal, is not life threatening. When people feel that they have too much work on and are stressed, there is normally no life threatening concern, though they feel it physically due the body's hard wiring to produce adrenaline and cortisol as if there were a real external threat. Clearly with Covid-19 there are both risks to health as well as financial and broader well-being, so how best to deal with anxiety in this situation?

Freud focusses on the difference between "misery" and "ordinary unhappiness" and the important role therapy can play in moving a patient from the first state to the secondary. "Ordinary happiness" can include a host of emotions and concerns including worries, sadness and others. It is both unhelpful and perhaps dangerous to not feel these emotions and deny their occurrence.  However, getting flooded by anxiety, panicking, taking overly cautious measures, is also not helpful so a balance needs to be struck when dealing with uncertainty.

So how can we best shape our responses in this environment?

Tara Brach, psychotherapist and teacher of meditation outlines a RAIN method to manage emotions:

• "Recognising our anxiety or all the emotional responses we may have whether that be through the thoughts we have or how we feel things like anxiety in the body
• Accepting that this is how we feel and not beating ourselves up or trying to get rid of these feelings
• Investigating the feelings and thoughts in terms of where they are coming from, what other experiences may we have that are contributing, what assumptions and beliefs might be around e.g. telling ourselves this is going to be catastrophic, I am not going to cope
• Nurturing ourselves and others in times where we may be experiencing difficult feelings and acknowledging that in these times where there is real threat around we may struggle".