2020. COVID-19 and Its Ghosts at Our Doorsteps: Transformations, Opportunities and Limits

Valeria Pulcini, a psychotherapist and analyst at the Institute of Self Psychology and Relational Psychoanalysis in Milan, Italy, shares her personal story treating patients in the first year of the pandemic. Amidst the frenzy of the first wave, with panic-stricken citizens assaulting supermarkets (Pulcini 230) and deserted streets, she receives countless messages from patients seeking online sessions. Virtual meetings, while accompanied by an “uneasiness towards the screen” (Pulcini 231), provide a more intimate understanding of her patients’ lives, as the collective trauma of the pandemic paves the way for a new kind of therapeutic intimacy. In these meetings, “there are three of us: the patient, me, and in the constant background of this scene, the looming presence of the pandemic” (Pulcini 232). Navigating her own pandemic-induced struggles, Pulcini discovers the significance of forging a new relationship between her personal and clinical identity, recognizing the need to make herself more available than ever before. Her essay challenges the certainty of scientific knowledge, questioning assumptions of “omnipotence” (Pulcini 239) and the infallibility of 21st-century science in the face of a crisis. With honesty, authenticity, and vulnerability, Pulcini offers a unique therapeutic perspective on COVID-19, emphasizing that this shift in her practice holds profound value for both her own well-being and the comfort it brings to her patients. Optimistically, she concludes, “I discover – with deep gratitude and a feeling of wonder – that I somehow remained capable of closeness, of empathy, and of understanding, even when I wasn’t sure how any of these could possibly survive” (Pulcini 240).