"When we talk about mental health, we need to consider collective and social distress."

In this video from Solidaridad SJD, journalist Montse Santolino speaks with philosopher Marina Garcés about the impact of COVID-19 on mental health. There is no doubt about the widespread impact this pandemic is having on people's mental well-being. In this regard , Garcés offers a critical perspective on the individualistic way mental health is often addressed, instead of offering an interpretation of collective and social malaise that looks beyond the illness itself .

"This affliction is returned to us in the form of clinical analysis, not as a phenomenon of collective malaise, of social unrest," explains Garcés, "if we were to make a collective diagnosis of the state of society, it would reveal a great malaise that, instead of translating into an analysis or perspective that tells us why we are unwell, and therefore, having a political, social, ethical, cultural and human interpretation of all this malaise and, consequently, of transformation and action, becomes a clinical analysis, more diagnoses, a demand for more attention to mental health – which is very necessary – but it is not the only perspective we need."

According to the philosopher, being able to have this other perspective would allow us to find meaning in what is happening to us as a society and would give us more tools to avoid reaching the point of illness.

Garcés explains that " it's a symptom that our social security system treats psychology as a luxury. A person who suffers because of their social and material living conditions is more likely to get sick than others. It shocks me how little we acknowledge this, which seems obvious, not only in our collective consciousness but also in the very structures of comprehensive healthcare and in the way the relationship between material living conditions and their psychological effects is addressed."

In the conversation with Montse Santolino, the need to work with emotions is also addressed, not as if it were a coded roller coaster where you're either up or down, with intense emotions marked by immediacy, but rather as "going through the most uncomfortable, the roughest, the least exciting, but also leaving behind unnecessary darkness and learning to be present for what lasts. Going through things like what we are experiencing has to do with this, with learning to give ourselves tools to sustain ourselves and endure over time while we transform ."