Peace of Mind

The present collection focuses on articles that appeal to mental health practices and policies as a way to establish social and moral order in the time of social and economic instability and uncertainty brought about by the pandemic. In Russia, the pandemic highlighted the critical condition of healthcare (note, Russia had the highest number of healthcare providers who died of covid-19 worldwide), as well as the general distrust of the public towards authorities, including health authorities. The covid-19 pandemic intensified the demographic crisis in the country, reducing the Russian population with 1,3 million people in-between 2020-21. It also emphasized existing inequalities and vulnerability of ethnic minorities, elderly people, and children. Issues of personal safety and organization of work of medical institutions have come to the fore. For medical professionals and policy makers, escalation of violence, high death rates and psychological distress among healthcare providers, and increased risks of suicidality and anxiety among the general public served as a way to appeal for implementation of preventive programs and new legislative procedures. Appeal to ‘spirituality’ and ‘spiritual abilities’ as a psychological adjustment to new social reality became a new therapeutic discourse, to provide a sense of security in an uncertain time. At the same time, the rumor-spreading and the anti-vaccine movement (which divided the Russian society into two) provided a form of emotional opposition, similar to some extent to the case of China.

See abstracts and keywords for the articles covering Russia (pdf).

1. Modeling Suicidality Risks and Understanding the Phenomenon of Suicidality Under the Loupe of Pandemic Context: National Findings of the COMET-G Study in the Russian Population. Consortium Psychiatricum | 2022 | Volume 3 | Issue 2 (Russian & English) Syunyakov, T. et al.
   
   
2. Determinants of Suicidal Behavior in the context of Global Constraints [Сумачев, А. В. Детерминанты суицидального поведения в условиях глобальных ограничений / А. В. Сумачев, Р. В. Пузыревский // Гуманитарные, социальноэкономические и общественные науки. – 2021. – № 3. – С. 194-197].
   
   
3. Dynamics of Anxiety and Resilience in the activities of medical workers under prolonged conditions of Coronavirus infection [Н.В. Ванюхина, Г.Г. Семенова-Полях, С.Ю. Старовойтова, М.А. Филатова-Сафронова. ДИНАМИКА ТРЕВОЖНОСТИ И ЖИЗНЕСТОЙКОСТИ В ДЕЯТЕЛЬНОСТИ МЕДИЦИНСКИХ РАБОТНИКОВ В ПРОДОЛЖИТЕЛЬНЫХ УСЛОВИЯХ КОРОНАВИРУСНОЙ ИНФЕКЦИИ. ВЕСТНИК УДМУРТСКОГО УНИВЕРСИТЕТА. ЕРИЯ ФИЛОСОФИЯ. ПСИХОЛОГИЯ. ПЕДАГОГИКА 2022. Т. 32, 1] (Russian) N.V. Vanyukhina, G.G. Semenova-Polyakh, S.Yu. Starovoitova, M.A. Filatova-Safronova (2022).
   
   
4. Social and communication population adaptation mechanisms to the conditions of a pandemic in the all-Russian, regional and sectoral contexts [Чумиков А. Н. Социально-коммуникационные механизмы адаптации населения к условиям пандемии в общероссийском, региональном и отраслевом контекстах // Социологическая наука и социальная практика. 2022. Т. 10, № 1. С. 7–23. Chumikov, A.N. (Russian)
   
   
5. Concerns of the Russian Civil Society in the Context of the Spread of COVID-19. [Тревоги российского гражданского обществав условиях распространения COVID-19]. Social Policy and Sociology. Vol. 20. No. 3. P. 183–190. (In Russ.)   Shushpanova, I.S. (2021). (Russian)
   
   
6. Olga A. Karpenko, Timur S. Syunyakov, Maya A. Kulygina, Alexey V. Pavlichenko, Anastasia S. Chetkina, Alisa V. Andrushchenko Ольга А. Карпенко, Тимур С. Сюняков, Майя А. Кулыгина, Алексей В. Павличенко, Анастасия С. Четкина, Алиса В. Андрющенко. Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on anxiety, depression and distress – online survey results amid the pandemic in Russia Mental-health clinic No. 1 named after N.A. Alexeev, Moscow, Russia. Consortium Psychiatricum| 2020 | Volume 1 | Issue 1
   
   
7. Specifics of Infodemic in Russia: From WhatsApp to the Investigative Committee. Monitoring of Public Opinion: Economic and Social Changes. No. 6. P. 231–265.  [Архипова А. С., Радченко Д. А., Козлова И. В., Пейгин Б. С., Гаврилова М. В., Петров Н. В. Пути российской инфодемии: от WhatsApp до Следственного комитета // Мониторинг об щественного мнения: экономические и социальные перемены. 2020. No 6. С. 231—265. Arkhipova A. S., Radchenko D. А., Kozlova I. V., Peigin B. S., Gavrilova M. V., Petrov N. V. (2020)  (In Russ.)
   
   
8. Current tasks of psychiatric services in connection with the pandemic [Мосолов С.Н. Актуальныезадачи психиатрической службы в связи с пандемией COVID-19 // Современная терапия психическихрасстройств. – 2020. – № 2.– С. 26B32. – DOI:10.21265/PSYPH.2020.53.59536] (Russian) Mosolov, S. N.

See abstracts and keywords for the articles covering Nigeria and Ghana (pdf).

Nigeria

This compiled database outlines literature describing how despite the negative impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, some positive outcomes such as increased access to mental health care (also based on government policy) and stronger social support systems were also present. There is also a report describing the situation of violence and insurgency in northern Nigeria during the pandemic and how the pandemic did not bring about cease fire but rather provided a platform for more harm. The absence of peace of mind as a result of the double pandemic – conflict and the Covid-19 pandemic – in the country was real. However, the pandemic and its associated lockdown and curfews also provided an avenue for the fight for peace of mind by the military. While a successful attack was achieved the action distorted the peace within the military as they became to a target group to the insurgence.

1. Comparison of Public Mental Health in Nigeria During the Pandemic and the New Normal. Journal of Community Health Provision, 2, 185-196. Snema, A. (2022). 
   
   
2. How COVID-19 is impacting peace and conflict 
   
   
3. Reappraising Conflict Trends in Nigeria amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic 
   
   
4. The Silent Pandemic: Legislative Reforms to Protect Nigerian Minds During COVID-19 
   
   
5. Adaptive peacebuilding: supporting community coronavirus responses 

Ghana

The identified literature on the peace of mind in Ghana shows a call by political scientists, George Asekere and Augustine Arko to the government for more attention to be placed on the mental health impact of the pandemic after their exploratory study found a bias towards medical attention. But other literature also shows innovative mental health support and resilient building strategies developed and applied to people living with disability, health workers and the public in response to a funding call from an NGO based in Ghana. Away from the wider society, the search for peace of mind is reported of Ghanaian men who had to develop other means of exercising masculinity to ensure peace in their homes during the pandemic and its associated scarcity and uncertainties.

1. An NGO, Ghana Somubi Dwumadie’s summarises the details of psychosocial resilience support projects in Covid-19 undertaken by grantees the NGO sponsored. Six different projects targeting different vulnerable groups in Ghana were described on the site.
   
   
2. Building Peaceful Masculinities in the Context of Covid-19: Reflections from Fieldwork among the Dagaaba of Northwestern Ghana. Dery, Isaac. (2021).
   
   
3. The Politics of Mental Health amidst COVID-19 in Ghana: 92-113.

This selection of articles engages with key concepts that point to therapeutic governing strategies mobilized by Chinese state to promote “peace of mind” in the society amidst the pandemic, in official discourses often referred to as a “war without gunpowder”. This metaphor was used by Xi Jinping in a 2020 speech, in which he highlighted the importance of psychological intervention (xinli ganyu) during this health crisis. Central to these strategies is the concept of psychological adjustment (xinli tiaozheng) to new social realities, framed as a positive coping strategy (jiji yingdui). Enthusiastic embracing of strict anti-pandemic measures is an important dimension of this adjustment process. Defiant behaviors and emotions (such as anger, resentment, anxiety, or apathy) are framed as a form of emotional opposition (qingxu duili) that requires therapeutic interventions such as cultivating empathy towards anti-pandemic staff (trusting that they have a good reason for what they are doing). Rumor-spreading (chuanyao) is a widely debated form of emotional opposition, a practice against which state bureaucrats launched systematic campaigns to curtail not only the circulation of non-scientifically verified claims about the virus but also various forms of emotional dissidence.

1. “Pay Attention to Signs of ‘Emotional Opposition’ in Grassroot Anti-pandemic Efforts” (基层抗疫中的“情绪对立”苗头需注意). Chinese Communist Party News Network. 18 February. (in Mandarin) LU Tenglong and CHANG Xuemei. 2020 (accessed 15 January 2024).
   
   

2. “The Psychological Motivations Behind People’s Unintentional Spreading of Rumors during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The perspective of Fear Management Theory” (新冠肺炎疫情下民众无意传谣的心理动因：恐惧管理理论的视角). (in Mandarin) LUO Xingyu and DING Qian. 2022. Abstracts from the 24th National Academic Conference on Psychology: Proceedings of the Chinese Psychological Society: 1969-1970. 25 November.

3. “Integrated Development of Ideological and Political Education and Mental Health Education for College Students in the Post- pandemic Era” (后疫情时代大学生思想政治教育与心理健康教育融合发展). Journal of Shenyang Agricultural University (Social Science Edition). Online publication. 16 September (in Mandarin) WANG Yuhan, YIN Zhihua, and WANG Xuehang. 2022.
   
   
4. “Strengthen Psychological Counselling and Psychological Intervention (加强心理疏导，做好心理防护).” Xinhua News. 16 March, (in Mandarin) LU Lin (accessed 14 January 2024).

The theme of this curatorial project emerged from my fieldwork in Colombia, a country that has endured a prolonged history of armed conflict and violence. In recent decades, the country has made important progress towards developing a peace agreement ratified in 2016, which has been in place up until now. In the context of peacebuilding, discourses around mental health served as an important platform from which several claims could be made, including reparative care for direct victims of the conflict, as well as the development of preventive programs against violent behaviour and the fostering of peaceful conviviality. Yet, beyond these pragmatic ambitions, mental health policies also became a cornerstone of peacebuilding politics, portrayed as an important pathway for the achievement of citizens’ right to "peace of mind," which would be reached with the end of the conflict and the everyday episodes of violence that disturbed people's minds.

During the pandemic, discourses surrounding people’s mental health came to the fore once again in Colombia. Newspaper articles and media frequently discussed the increasing levels of depression and anxiety. Academic researchers and clinical doctors quickly developed new tools for assessing psychological forms of distress and asserted that the pandemic had profound impacts on the mental health of the population. Even more notable was the response of policymakers, who swiftly reacted to this scenario, setting up responses at a speed and scale never seen before in the country's history.

These discourses were driven by a recognition of individual suffering, triggered by the lockdown and its contingency measures, but also revitalised in the face of the complex political, economic, and social turmoil that unfolded during the pandemic in the country, resurrecting the nightmare of wartime and challenging the project of achieving calmness and tranquillity in the nation's minds.

Despite its many particularities, the case of Colombia is not unique and speaks of a utopian view that psy disciplines have occupied in many parts of the globe over the previous decades. Indeed, the development of new psychotropic drugs and therapeutics offered modern civilisations not only a promise of a life of contentment and serenity but also practical tools for administering deviant bodies and minds that could disrupt it.

COVID-19 certainly disrupted this dream. The pandemic catalysed intense political contention. Across the world, protests, strikes, and clashes between civil society and the State took to the streets, provoking anxiety and fear.

The collection of articles curated in this project reunites pieces of writing showing how mental health discourses were mobilised in the context of political contention that emerged in different parts of the globe during the pandemic.

In this volatile landscape, psy-disciplines have often been thrust into the spotlight. Touted for their purported ability to understand the human mind and acclaimed as a discipline possessing a unique practical and theoretical toolkit to access and transform the psych, psychiatry and mental health practices became important references for the alleviation of the distress and trauma caused by the pandemic, but also to promote the mitigation of violence and conflict.

See abstracts and keywords for the articles covering Colombia.

1. Mental health in Colombia: Amid a global virus, tear gases and rifle shots. The Lancet Regional Health - Americas, 3, 100050. Gonzalez-Diaz, J. M., Córdoba, R., & Zamora, D. C. (2021). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lana.2021.100050
   
   
2. Coronavirus: Ten Especulations about the future [Coronavirus: Diez especulaciones sobre el futuro]. Editorial Planeta Colombiana SA. Bogotá. Gaviria, A. et al. (2020).
   
   
3. Social Inequities in the Impact of COVID-19 Lockdown Measures on the Mental Health of a Large Sample of the Colombian Population (PSY-COVID Study). Journal of Clinical Medicine, 10(22), 5297. Sanabria-Mazo, J. P. Et al. (2021). 
   
   
4. Descripción de un Programa de Telesalud Mental en el Marco de la Pandemia de COVID-19 en Colombia. Revista Colombiana de Psiquiatría. Zapata-Ospina, J. P. Et al. (2022). 
   
   
5. “Colombia and the instrumentalization of the covid-19 pandemic” (Colombia y la instrumentalización de la pandemia de covid 19). História, Ciências, Saúde – Manguinhos, Rio de Janeiro, v.29, n.1, jan.-mar. 2022, p.261-267. MÁRQUEZ-VALDERRAMA, Jorge. 
   
   
6. “Violence in Latin America Today: Varieties and Impacts” (Violencia en América Latina hoy: manifestaciones e impactos). Revista de Estudios Sociales 73: 2-17. Rettberg, Angelika. 
   
   
7. Conceptual perspectives in mental health and their implications in the context of achieving peace in colombia. Ciencia e Saude Coletiva, 25(3), 929–942. Hernández-Holguín, D. M. (2020). 
   
   
8. April 28, 2021: a date that shook the recent history of Colombia 
   
   
9. Opinion Colombia and the desire to find culprits at the worst moment of the pandemic