THE SPECIFICS OF ADOLESCENT CRISIS DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Abstract

         Introduction/Aim: Adolescents pass through three phases of an accidental crisis: the negation of real
danger, feeling of confusion and chaos with the onset of the first symptoms, a complete depressive
breakdown with a different range of manifestations. The Covid-19 pandemic has become a real
challenge for these patients. The aim of this study is to review and analyze the clinical psychotherapeutic
material of the described phases of the passage through the accidental crisis, caused by the Coronavirus
pandemic.
Methods: Adolescents of different ages are involved. The materials of psychotherapeutic sessions of
adolescents were used in the paper, from different phases of the adolescent crisis. To explain the phase
of negation of real danger, adolescents of the early and central stages of a period of adolescence are
presented. To explain the phase of feelings of confusion and chaos to complete depressive breakdown,
adolescents of the late and post adolescent stages of a period of adolescence are presented.
Patient presentation: In adolescents, who did not show a problematic passage through the
developmental crisis, the accidental crisis of the pandemic leads to the denial of the real danger. In a
younger, twelve-year-old adolescent, at a specific level of functioning, there is a weakened concentration
for learning. In a slightly older, fifteen-year-old adolescent, the denial of real danger, through
sublimation, goes into altruism. In adolescents with already manifested problematic passage through
the developmental crisis, the symptoms worsen due to the effect of the superimposed accidental crisis
caused by the pandemic. In adolescents, the middle phase of adolescence, there is a mixture of real
somatic problems with somatization. In the older adolescent, post adolescent phase, with addiction
disease problems, the pandemic provokes irritability and low frustrating tolerance leading to complete
depressive breakdown.
Conclusion: We can conclude that the superposition of accidental crises always complicates the
normative adolescent crisis, but we emphasize that the manifested psychopathology can be of a
transient character. Psychiatric psychotherapeutic interventions are determined in relation to the
degree of threatening or completely manifested decompensation from shorter counseling interventions
to the intensification of deep psychotherapy, with or without adequate drug therapy.