Showcasing a diverse range of contributions from psychoanalysts of many different countries and theoretical orientations, Psychoanalysis and Covidian Life, a collective work edited by Howard B. Levine and Ana de Staal, offers readers the opportunity to explore and reflect upon the ways in which the Covid-19 pandemic has begun to influence analytical practice. From the changes imposed on the framework (online sessions) to the impact of the trauma of isolation and the disruption of our social anchoring (required by confinement and health protection gestures), to the challenge presented to the ‘ordinary’ denial of mortality, this book explores the lessons of what the pandemic can teach us about how to understand and treat collective distress individually and puts psychoanalytical tools to the test of the profound psychosocial upheavals that the twenty-first century may hold in store.
This book will be of interest to practising and trainee clinicians and anyone with an interest in the all-consuming effects of a global pandemic.
Howard B. Levine is a member of APsaA, PINE, the Contemporary Freudian Society, on the faculty of the NYU Post-Doc Contemporary Freudian track, on the editorial board of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Inquiry, editor-in-chief of the Routledge Wilfred Bion Studies Book Series, and in private practice in Brookline, Massachusetts. He has authored many articles, book chapters, and reviews on psychoanalytic process and technique and the treatment of primitive personality disorders. His co-edited books include Unrepresented States and the Construction of Meaning (Karnac, 2013); On Freud’s Screen Memories (Karnac, 2014); The Wilfred Bion Tradition (Karnac 2016); Bion in Brazil (Karnac, 2017), and Andre Green Revisited: Representation and the Work of the Negative (Karnac, 2018). He is the author of Transformations de l’Irreprésentable (Ithaque, 2019) and the forthcoming Between the Silence and the Cry (Routledge).
Ana de Staal is a Franco-Brazilian psychoanalyst, member of the Freudian Psychoanalysis Society (SPF) and psychosomatist. Former Editor-in-Chief of Revue Chimères, founded by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, she now runs Éditions d’Ithaque in France. She has translated and published the French editions of most of W. R. Bion’s seminars, as well as the works of important authors of contemporary psychoanalysis, such as Thomas Ogden, Antonino Ferro, Christopher Bollas, Martin Bergmann and André Green. She works in private practice in Paris.
Duncan Barford, psychodynamic counsellor, SCAP no. 141 (Summer 2021) sussex-counselling.co.uk –
‘Its editor cautions it is too soon to draw firm conclusions on the impact of the pandemic on the practice of therapy. Yet this collection of 15 essays … succeeds in its aim of providing some useful observations, ideas, and experiences.’
Jane Cooper, former senior counsellor at the University of Cambridge – Therapy Today Nov 2021 –
‘it is in demonstrating the resilience of the analytic frame and the value of psychoanalytic tools in illuminating the structure of our most personal fears that this book proves its unique worth. […] A fascinating read.’
Helen Lowe, registered member of BACP, ‘Healthcare Counselling and Psychotherapy’ Vol 22 No 22 April 2022 –
‘I think this book would be of interest to anyone working in the psychotherapeutic professions, who wishes to reflect on the multiple challenges of working and being over the past two years. It is a stimulating read for anyone who can resist the lure of amnesia now that the pandemic seems to be becoming endemic.’
Lord John Alderdice, Harris Manchester College, Oxford, ‘Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy’, 2022 –
‘I was immediately taken with the title of this book and impressed that Howard Levine and Ana de Staal had been able, so quickly, to bring together papers by a range of psychoanalytic practitioners from many different countries. [… It] sets down some very important challenges for us as individuals and as a profession, with opportunities and responsibilities that go beyond the clinic and the office. I will be mulling over them for some time, as I think you will too.’
Isaac Tylim, ‘The Psychoanalytic Quarterly’, 92:1, 148-153, 2023 –
‘The different chapters of this seminal book weave a rich tapestry of this covidian life. […] The contributors offer a much-needed attempt to conceptualize collective and individual distress, including the social/political context in which the pandemic emerged, its effect on the therapeutic setting and the frame, and the immediacy of the clinical realm.’