Summer is here and with it the social contacts.
Beer gardens and swimming pools are full.
But the pandemic has left its mark on many people.
Hamburg / Worcester - suddenly standing in a crowd again, everything is louder and narrower, everything around you seems uncomfortably close.
“When I think about meeting lots of friends again or going to a restaurant, I somehow have an uncomfortable feeling,” a young student from Böblingen tells the SWR.
He's not the only one scared of returning to normal life after a pandemic and lockdown.
Even after vaccination, many people avoid restaurants, public transport, or other potential crowds.
According to a recent study by the
American Pschology Association
in the USA, half of the population there feels uncomfortable thinking about social contacts after the end of the Corona period.
This phenomenon is commonly referred to as "cave syndrome".
Corona Cave Syndrome: Is it normal to be afraid of being together?
- Psychiatrist advises patience
These fears are actually a matter of course in our everyday lives after the profound cuts of the pandemic.
After all, it took long enough to get the corona crisis and its restrictions into our heads in the first place.
It can take a while before these trained fears disappear again.
The psychiatrist Claas-Hinrich Lammers also considers the pandemic-related cave syndrome to be a “completely normal phenomenon”, as he
explains
in an interview with
Deutschlandfunk
.
According to him, many will make it without psychotherapeutic help.
"If 50 percent of all people have such a cave syndrome, then it is not an illness, but a delay in adjustment."
Psychologist gives the all-clear for “Cave Syndrome” - who still needs treatment
The clinical psychologist and anxiety researcher Georg Alpers also considers the term “cave syndrome” inappropriate and exaggerated.
He explains to the Tagesschau: “Syndrome is a technical term that stands for the fact that there are symptoms of psychological distress that occur repeatedly together and that can be reliably observed.
At this point in time, we don't know that at all.
Syndrome sounds like a clinical picture, but in the vast majority of cases it is certainly not a disease. "
However, there will also be people who will develop a pathological fear of contact over the long term.
In general, the number of depression and anxiety disorders in Germany has risen.
Here, doctors definitely recommend psychotherapeutic advice and treatment.
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