Coronavirus resources
With so much information (and misinformation) flying around, it can be difficult to know where to turn for wise words and high-quality resources right now.
So, we’ve put together a list of things we’ve found on the web, grouped by topic. We hope you find them useful.
We’ll be adding to the list regularly, so do check the page again soon.
Keep well,
All at Relational Spaces.
Topics
(click to jump down to a topic)
Arts and culture
- Get free dance lessons online! Digital dance studio 20DV are offering free dance tutorials until 1 May 2020
- Google Arts & Culture collections feature content online from over 1,200 leading museums and archives.
- The Architectural Digest pick out 10 of the world’s leading museums that you can now explore online through Google Arts & Culture.
CPD for therapists
- Educational events provider CONFER is offering free membership and also has 10 popular lectures available for free.
- Online CPD provider OnlineEvents is offering some of its events for free. You can access its library of previous lectures for £8 a month or £70 a year.
- Training provider Tavistock Relationships is offering online counselling and psychotherapy courses and CPD training.
- The Association for Counselling and Therapy Online has lots of information about training resources to work online.
- The Open University has lots of free online courses, some relating to therapy.
- PESI UK (previously Psychotherapy Excellence) has lots of online courses for practitioners.
- NICABM (the National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioural Medicine) has several advanced courses for practitioners and some useful infographics.
- The Weekend University runs some online courses and lectures on psychotherapy (although its main focus is psychology).
For children (and parents)
- Audible is making hundreds of its audio stories available for free during the coronavirus pandemic.
- The BBC has lots of fun online lessons for primary-school children.
- Clan Yogis is offering free online kids yoga classes. Visit clanyogis.com/timetable and register for a class. They’ll email you a link to join the class 1 hour before it starts.
- Lots of museums, galleries and educational sites offer free virtual tours.
- How to help children cope with the coronavirus emergency – advice from Kenneth Barish, child therapist and clinical professor of psychology.
- Mothering, scarification and trauma in the time of corona – as parents the world over start to worry about the long-term impact of the pandemic on our children, psychoanalyst and mother Jane G Goldberg considers the relationship between trauma and transformation.
- Activities, links, tips and advice to help families learn more about the news together on the Guardian website.
General info
- Alanna Shaikh’s TED Talk asks where did the new coronavirus originate, how did it spread so fast, and what’s next?
Mental wellbeing
- Information about coronavirus and your wellbeing from the mental health charity Mind.
- How to manage your mental health if you self-isolate during coronavirus – article from The Independent.
- Yale University is offering a free online course The Science of Well-Being that teaches you how to be happier.
- Psychologist and author Tara Brach has a list of talks and guided meditations to support you through these difficult times.
- Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield talks about how to find peace amidst COVID-19.
- The Relational School is offering free online psychological support for frontline NHS staff involved in the current COVID-19 crisis.
Money and finance
- Government support for businesses on the GOV.UK website.
- Official guidance if you cannot pay your tax bill on time.
- A list of key financial support for businesses and individuals, compiled by chartered accountants and tax advisers BKL.
- Guidance on how to respond to coronavirus, including updates on employment tax, Statutory Sick Pay, redundancy alternatives and updates from the UK Government – again, compiled by BKL.
Online therapy: resources for clients
- The Free Psychotherapy Network are offering free online therapy groups for people living in the UK who are isolated during the coronavirus crisis.
Online therapy: resources for therapists
- onlineevents Behind the Screen series – a guide to the opportunities and challenges for therapists working online.
- Advice for clients and therapists about online therapy from the Association for Counselling and Therapy Online.
- An online course about moving your practice online.
- Advice from counsellor and psychotherapist Ruth Allen about moving your practice online.
- More tips on using Zoom safely and securely from Ars Technica.
- Some top tips for working from home from business jouranlist and homeworker Abigail Townsend (via Starling Bank).
- Therapist Suzie Mosson, a director of Online Training for Counsellors, has some expert advice for practitioners looking to move their practice online for the first time.
- Zoom are offering free 30-minute expert tutorials to get you up and running with the video software.
- Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute (SPI) founder Dr Pat Ogden and SPI faculty member Dr Bonnie Goldstein share insights in this free webinar on how to practise somatic psychotherapy when you can’t be in the same room with your client.
- The webinar above is inspired by a chapter that Ogden and Goldstein wrote in Theory and Practice of Online Therapy: Internet-delivered Interventions for Individuals, Groups, Families, and Organizations, by Haim Weinberg and Arnon Rolnick (Routledge, 2019). The chapter is now available to read for free.
Physical wellbeing
- Some great home workout videos from Dynamic Fitness Training in Muswell Hill.
- Great post about how to stay safe and ensure that your physical workout boosts, rather than suppresses, your immune system.
- Blog post looking at the best materials for making DIY masks.
Politics and economics
- DiEM25 live-streaming event with Yanis Varoufakis, Greek economist, academic, philosopher and politician. Monday 23 March 2020 7pm–8pm. He’ll talk and answer questions on the subject “World after coronavirus: Europe’s latest historic failure”. You’ll need to register to view. Event will be streamed via Zoom and YouTube (NB: DiEM25 is a pan-European, cross-border movement of democrats).
Thought pieces
- Mario Perini’s chapter ‘Panic and pandemics: from fear of contagion to contagion of fear’ in
Psychoanalytic Reflections on a Changing World (edited by Halina Brunning) is a particularly pertinent read at the moment. The entire book is available online as a PDF (select page 244 to go straight to the chapter, and then click the presentation mode button on the right to view in full screen). - Article in The Lancet Psychiatry, April 2020: ‘Mental health care for medical staff in China during the COVID-19 outbreak‘.
- Mothering, scarification and trauma in the time of corona – as parents the world over start to worry about the long-term impact of the pandemic on our children, psychoanalyst and mother Jane G Goldberg considers the relationship between trauma and transformation.
- Caring through crises: how therapist anxiety might be manifesting – counsellor Sarah Van Gogh offers some grounding for therapists experiencing hopelessness and being overwhelmed as they continue to care for clients through this crisis.