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Essential anxiety: COVID‐19 in analytic practice
Author(s) -
Schellinski Kristina
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of analytical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.285
H-Index - 23
eISSN - 1468-5922
pISSN - 0021-8774
DOI - 10.1111/1468-5922.12690
Subject(s) - existentialism , soul , individuation , psychology , anxiety , instinct , id, ego and super ego , psychoanalysis , covid-19 , death anxiety , psychology of self , self , pandemic , psychotherapist , social psychology , epistemology , philosophy , medicine , disease , psychiatry , infectious disease (medical specialty) , pathology , evolutionary biology , biology
This paper explores the impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic on my relationship with analysands and my inner world. I reflect on the role of the archetypal Self during times of existential anxiety that may lead to an experience of ‘essential anxiety’. This term refers to a meeting by a fearful ego with an inward recognition of the Self, when faced with threat. The efforts to curb the spread of the pandemic changed our ways of life, while the virus itself threatened our existence in debilitating or outright destructive ways. But what also came into view, in sessions of analysis and supervision, was the creative instinct, and a celebration of life. The soul‐to‐soul relationship, and the connection with images of the archetypal Self, made the experience of existential anxiety at times an essential experience that facilitated psychological growth. I discuss some advantages of on‐line Jungian analysis where, despite distance and partial view, the body still serves as container to hold important psychological material, conferring a sense of wholeness for analyst and analysand. The COVID‐19 crisis is terrible and terrifying but it also provides an opportunity for self‐regulation and individuation.