17 July 2020- PAHO Subregional Mental Health Advisors for Central America and the Latin Caribbean, Dr. Carmen Martinez, and for South America, Dr. Andrea Bruni hosted a webinar on loss and grief during the COVID-19 pandemic, as part of the MHPSS and COVID-19 webinar series in Latin America.
Giselle De la Hoz, psychologist and founder of the Piero Rafael Martinez Foundation, an organization based in Panama that provides emotional support to individuals and families in the process of coping with the physical loss of a loved one, presented on the process of grief and its manifestations, and how to support people experiencing grief during COVID-19. Dr. De la Hoz outlined the four tasks of mourning: accepting the reality of the loss; processing the pain of grief; adjusting to a world without the deceased and finding an enduring connection with the deceased. Mental health practitioners play an important role in assisting those who have experienced a loss in working through these tasks.
The COVID has created a variety of changes and losses in perople’s lives, ranging form the loss of employment or housing, to the loss of loved ones, and some people may be expereincing different types of loss concurrently. COVID-19 has also impacted the way that people who expereince to the loss of a loved one are able to grieve and be comforted; traditional burial customs, which often bring together extended family and friends, have been prohibited or discouraged to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. People suffering grief or loss should reach out to people they trust for support and seek the help of a mental health professional when they need additional support.
Recoding (available only in Spanish)