A case report and first-person account of an individual at risk for psychosis who improved during the COVID-19 pandemic

Shaynna N. Herrera, Cansu Sarac, Zarina R. Bilgrami, Matthew F. Dobbs, Rachel Jespersen, Shalaila S. Haas, Sahil Garg, Riaz B. Shaik, Yulia Landa and Cheryl M. Corcoran

Psychosis, 2022, vol. 14, issue 2, 190-199

Abstract: BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic is expected to increase stress and mental health symptoms. We present the case of a young man at risk for psychosis who has paradoxically shown symptomatic and functional improvement as a result of circumstances produced by COVID-19. These changes were unexpected given the client’s persistent mental health struggles in the year leading up to the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States and the expectation of an exacerbation of psychotic-like symptoms.MethodsThis report is based on clinical assessments and the client’s first-person account during the height of the pandemic when stay at home orders were in place.ResultsDuring the pandemic, the client demonstrated increased agency by taking on more responsibility at home and obtaining part-time employment. He showed improvement in his mood and relationships with others, had less symptom-related distress, and significantly reduced his cannabis use. The client interpreted these improvements in terms of changing his mindset toward more adaptive thoughts and engaging in healthy coping skills such as praying, reading, and healthy eating.DiscussionThis case highlights the importance of fostering agency in clients during a time of crisis and ensuring that clinicians be aware of potential biases about mental health symptom exacerbation.

Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/17522439.2021.1915369 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:rpsyxx:v:14:y:2022:i:2:p:190-199

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RPSY20

DOI: 10.1080/17522439.2021.1915369

Access Statistics for this article

Psychosis is currently edited by Dr John Read

More articles in Psychosis from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().