COVID-19, precarity and loneliness

In this paper I discuss Jungian psychological work of the trauma and loss experienced in reaction to COVID-19 with a man who represents a clinical composite. The issues of precarity, a concept used by the philosopher Judith Butler, are combined with the notions of lack and absence of French psychoanalyst André Green. The psychological and societal situation of precarity aroused the man’s childhood issues that were long repressed. The loneliness, isolation and death from COVID-19 mirrored his personal and the collective responses to the disaster from this global pandemic. He felt on the edge of collapse as what he knew of his world crashed and he found himself unable to cope. The subsequent Jungian work taking place through the virtual computer screen was taxing and restorative simultaneously for both analyst and analysand.     

Art in support of life: Caravaggio and the plague

In the struggle with COVID-19, art offered a way to face the solitude of the lockdown. The focus of this paper is primarily on Caravaggio’s painting The Seven Works of Mercy, with references to other paintings to amplify some aspects of the artist’s approach to life and his uniqueness in the artistic landscape of his time. Darkness was part of Caravaggio’s research for spiritual truth and by entering the stories of his life and exploring the tales told through imaginative expression in his paintings, it is possible to understand his process of exploration of ancestral darkness. The author uses her imagination to reflect on how art can help to contact the profound fears buried in the unconscious which are now being awakened by the pandemic. The contemplation of this painting facilitated the emergence of emotions related to the darkness of our time, with the discovery that empathy and mercy offer a way to come to terms with the pandemic. This approach demands a different understanding of reality with Caravaggio’s dark creative world becoming a companion that permits the exploration of what is not yet thinkable in daily life. Images accompany the author’s research that relies on her imagination and amplifications.     

The analyst as a citizen in the world

Beginning with a ‘big dream’ from almost fifty years ago, this paper tracks movement back and forth from an inner/individual adaptation to life to outer/collective adaptations through various stages of a life's journey. The rhythm between more inner orientation at one stage gives way to more outer adaptation at another stage and vice versa. This same movement can be paralleled by an exclusive emphasis on analysis at one stage and more of a mixture of analysis and activism at another stage. At the heart of this narrative is the realization that an inner big dream of decades before, symbolised both an inner path of developing a relationship with life‐promoting energies and an outer path represented by facilitating others’ discovery and participation in those energies. The dream therefore anticipated a more activist future of connecting inner and outer, individual and collective in various professional projects. This has resulted in occasional glimpses of the fact that the ‘spirit of the depths’ and ‘the spirit of the times’ can have a common meeting ground.     

Together – apart: in touch in a time of separation

This paper explores the experience of working as a Jungian analyst through the various phases of the global COVID-19 pandemic, examining the importance of the physical containing space alongside the analyst’s internal mind and how technology can both help and hinder understanding. A number of clinical vignettes illustrate the challenge of communicating over a distance, paying particular attention to the way countertransference phenomena can become re-attuned. Reference is made to mythology and symbols of hope, and consideration given to the meaning and purpose of the pandemic.     

Archetypes of the pandemic

This paper attempts to read the psychological and emotional impact of the COVID-19 pandemic through the archetypal images contained in patients’ dreams. In these dreams, symbols related to the power of nature and to extreme danger are paired with feelings of detachment that seem to point to a traumatic dissociation, due to the archetypal experience that erupts in familiar surroundings. Through the humanization of the ineffable experience, dissociation, which in the beginning of the pandemic showed in high levels of anxiety, panic attacks and depersonalization, can be transformed into the overview needed for the search for meaning. The container for this process of transformation is the analyst, the real, virtual or imagined one, and his or her ability to relate and feel.     

Coronavirus: does its activation of archetypes of evil cause added psychological suffering?

Fear and grief caused by the pandemic have produced a powerful unconscious narrative in the collective psyche that the coronavirus is driven by an innately evil, and possibly divine, force. The resulting archetypal dimension of fear causes an extra layer of psychological suffering in individuals. This paper discusses how and why this narrative was created and why it is so compelling by looking at 1) the myth-making nature of the human psyche, 2) the psychodynamics of fear that drive the narrative, 3) the properties of the coronavirus and the pandemic that activate negative poles of some archetypes, in particular, archetypes of evil, and 4) asking how analytical psychology can help ease psychological suffering caused by these negative narratives, where one possibility is to invoke the transcendent function. The author’s personal experiences as both biochemist and analytical psychologist elucidate how the transcendent function can promote healing.     

Justice and employee attitudes during organizational change: The mediating role of overall justice

IntroductionSeveral studies have investigated the mediating role of overall justice (OJ) in the relationships between specific dimensions of justice and employee attitudes. However, prior research has neglected to examine OJ during the process of organizational change, as suggested in fairness heuristic theory (FHT).ObjectiveThis study aims to replicate the results of previous studies and expand them by examining, in two contexts of organizational change implementation, the mediating role of OJ in the relationships between procedural, interpersonal, and informational justice (PJ, ITJ, and IFJ, respectively) and employee attitudes (job satisfaction, turnover intentions, and organizational commitment).MethodologyWe surveyed 537 employees experiencing a company reorganization (Study 1) and 188 employees experiencing a merger (Study 2).ResultsEach dimension of justice is related to OJ, which in turn is associated to employee attitudes. Furthermore, bootstrap results indicated that OJ mediates the effects of PJ, ITJ, and IFJ on job satisfaction and turnover intentions (in both studies), and on affective, normative, and continuance commitment (in Study 2).ConclusionOur findings show the importance of fairness during organizational change. Treating employees fairly in times of change is crucial for managers.     

Analytic attitude – focus or embodiment? Subtle communications in the transference/countertransference relationship

The paper considers a ‘befallment’ that occurred in the course of analysis at a time when the focus of work was too much at a conscious level, dissociated from the patient’s embodied and visceral depths. A rigidly held attitude of focal attention is considered as potentially a defence against embodied experiences of overwhelm and vulnerability that may haunt shadowy realms which remain unlit by the narrow beam of conscious awareness. Rather as a dream drifts in from the unconscious, an enactment by the analyst brought neglected aspects of the transference and countertransference relationship into the room. Later, the patient’s own dreaming mind offered images that suggested an underlying dynamic. These subtle communications, alongside the patient’s attitude toward the analyst’s lapse, are considered as factors in the achievement of greater embodied integration. The analyst’s difficulty in arriving at a formulation of such events is discussed, along with the necessity of holding such ‘befallments’ in mind over long periods of time before any explanation can be adumbrated.