IL GIORNO- PSYCHOLOGICAL BONUS BOOM IN APPLICATIONS AND NEW ALERTS -DOTT. DANIELE NAPPO

In Italy, the government has decided to provide the Psychological Bonus to help those who need to benefit from sessions with psychologists and psychotherapists. This need arose from the increase of depression, anxiety and emotional fragility, including in many adolescents. Schools can be involved as valuable help.

Bonus Psychologist avalanche: requests to access the measure, in just three days, exceeded 130,000, and this certainly proves that a public 'facility' accessible to all is needed to address the problem. The incidence of emotional disorders, post Covid, in the general population has increased. Loneliness, fear of infection, and economic anxieties have also played a role.
In two years of pandemic there has been a massive impact on mental health, but too little has been done to structurally strengthen dedicated and specific public services. In Italy, the Departments of Mental Health (Dsm) have no special programming for the treatment of 'Common Emotional Disorders,' which are those most often conjoined with the pandemic and have not developed skills in the treatment of less severe disorders; yet the 'abundant suffering, disability and social costs are even greater than that of severe disorders, because 'Common Emotional Disorders' can also be severely disabling and are much more widespread, since they create consequences for about 20 percent of the population. 

These disorders are very impactful on people in the midst of their working and family lives, with very large social harms: they particularly reach those who are in poverty and who often have fewer intellectual and economic resources to adequately deal with these issues.
Moreover, our public health system does not provide psychological interventions that are accessible to all, effectively exacerbating the situation of those who already have a provisional work and social situation. The effects of the pandemic on psychological distress have amplified the need to concretely offer treatment for the most widespread emotional disorders to all. It is necessary, indeed mandatory, to implement a public system that supports these kinds of actions. It is necessary to identify and promote effective interventions for appropriate prevention and treatment, realizing the opening to psychological treatments of psychological emotional disorders throughout Italy: anywhere and for anyone.
It must be realized that so many adolescents have difficulties related to post Covid and social isolation, and intellectual and creative resources must be activated, as soon as possible, to improve the quality of life of so many students. And schools can also be involved.