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Letter from Bucharest by Daniela Andronache

In Romania, the coronavirus has only sickened less than three hundred (tested) people so far, and nobody has died until today. Our population seems to understand pretty well the recommendations of going out only for strict necessities. And yet, over these last couple of weeks, in the sessions with all my patients, I have begun to immensely appreciate the life experience…

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Letter from Krakow by Bartosz Puk

It’s so good to be able to communicate with you on the current difficulties and all the matters concerned with COVID-19. I have been working in my consulting room in Kraków, Poland, for the last week and plan to continue with my patients by telephone or online. I do my best to consider this an opportunity to become closer to my patients. I think we both come into contact with something through the “contact barrier” or thanks to the contact barrier and the virus.

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Letter from Paris by Bernard Chervet

Paris is empty, very empty. Very strange. But it is even possible to feel a beauty in this emptiness! I have never seen Paris this way and in this state. Since Tuesday, we have lived in a complete confinement, “lockdown.” We have to stay inside our houses, without permission to go out. We need a certificate to go out and buy our food.

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Letter from Bilbao by Cristina Escudero

Thank you for the valuable ideas you are sharing in this space. I appreciate it so much. It gives me a lot of support to do my job. Thank you for the generosity and time that you are taking now in sharing your experiences. In this post, I want to limit my ideas to the topic of technologies and treatment. Two weeks ago, I found myself in a very different and new scene. As I have had no experience in remote treatment, I have tried to do my best to maintain a psychoanalytical frame…

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Letter from Pittsburgh by William F. Cornell

I am heartened that we have this shared space for the days and weeks ahead. I have been at my office for four days now and have worked with the majority of my clients by phone or Skype, although a significant number have chosen in-person sessions. We have modified our office setting to make this as safe as possible. I feel somewhat fortunate in that part of my practice for some time now has been on the phone or Skype…

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Letter from New York by Michael Diamond

The president stubbornly and arrogantly persists in directing his own personal reality show, which in fact exposes an ongoing assault on reality itself and on the public’s intelligence. Our protests and resistance often situated in the public squares and streets of American cities, large and small, have been taken away…

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Letter from Buenos Aires by Juan Pinetta

It is very interesting how this conversation is holding us all together, for in this state of affairs, our sense of safety is taxed to the limit. Even children who are the age of my daughter are dying. The situation is worrying. So I wonder: What remains of the thinking apparatus in times of catastrophe when we must make catastrophic changes?

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Letter from Jerusalem by Yehuda Fraenkel

The magnitude of emotional load together with ethical and clinical questions puts us in a total “terra incognita” state. I think that the need for coherence in external chaos is indeed universal, yet to us are both a demand and praxis of psychoanalytic practice engaging intrapsychic chaos.