Department of Humanities, University of Urbino Carlo Bo, Urbino, Italy.
Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy.
Front Public Health. 2022 Aug 12;10:976584. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2022.976584. eCollection 2022.
Starting from spring 2020, newspapers headlines and studies have suggested that the COVID-19 pandemics had a negative impact especially on the mental health of children and adolescents, so that terms like "lost generation" or "generation COVID-19" have been used to define youth in time of pandemic crisis. Similarly, international health agencies reported an increase in depression and anxiety among adolescents in COVID-19 time, but also a rise in bodily disorders, such as non-suicidal self-injury and eating disorders. However, scientific data on this matter are not as clear as they seem and theoretical-clinical proposals regarding the processes involved are lacking. Focusing specifically on bodily disorders in adolescents during COVID-19, the aim of this perspective paper is to review this issue and propose a novel viewpoint on it. Firstly, data regarding frequency and phenomenology of bodily disorders in adolescence before and during the pandemic will be presented to underline possible discrepancies, gaps, or hyperbolic descriptions in the literature published after the COVID-19 outbreak. Secondly, a specific theoretical-clinical perspective will be proposed, that is, a developmental psychopathology perspective which attempts to frame these phenomena in a more nuanced and complex way, taking into account the role of developmental processes in adolescence age and its difficulties in the specific, subjective life-context of the individual, when intertwining with vulnerability factors and stressful life events. As such, the function of the body for the adolescent as a primary mean for regulating the self-other relationship and developing a greater sense of self-agency will be highlighted. The final objective is to help the clinician in developing both a critical thinking about the data that are shared in public outlets and an intervention that takes into account the complexity of contemporary psychopathological phenomena.
自 2020 年春季以来，报纸头条和研究表明，COVID-19 大流行对儿童和青少年的心理健康产生了负面影响，因此出现了“失落的一代”或“COVID-19 代”等术语来定义大流行时期的青年。同样，国际卫生机构报告称，COVID-19 期间青少年的抑郁和焦虑有所增加，但也出现了身体障碍，如非自杀性自伤和饮食失调。然而，关于这方面的科学数据并不像看起来那样清晰，也缺乏关于所涉及过程的理论临床建议。本观点文章特别关注 COVID-19 期间青少年的身体障碍，旨在回顾这一问题并提出新的观点。首先，将介绍大流行前和大流行期间青少年身体障碍的频率和现象学数据，以强调文献中可能存在的差异、差距或夸大描述。其次，将提出一个特定的理论临床视角，即发展心理病理学视角，试图以更细致和复杂的方式来描述这些现象，考虑到青少年时期发展过程的作用及其在个体特定的主观生活环境中的困难，以及与脆弱性因素和压力性生活事件的交织。因此，将突出青少年身体的作用，作为调节自我-他人关系和发展更大自我能动性感的主要手段。最终目标是帮助临床医生对在公共渠道中共享的数据进行批判性思考，并采取干预措施，考虑到当代心理病理现象的复杂性。
