Psychoanalytic Diaries of the COVID-19 Pandemic

This intimate book explores the experiences of two psychoanalysts during the COVID-19 pandemic. It presents Angelo Antonio Moroni’s psychoanalytic diary and Pietro Roberto Goisis’s clinical diary, two highly personal perspectives that explore the interplay of the personal and the psychoanalytic during a time of collective trauma. Angelo’s account, written from his ‘camp tent’, examines how fundamental, time-tested procedures are suddenly questioned. Roberto’s diary is the story of his own experience as a COVID patient, the mutually therapeutic caring relationships he encounters and his efforts to keep his analytical expertise alive and well. The two accounts share painful and graphic experiences of the trauma of the pandemic, and how the authors were forced to reconsider the issues of analytical ‘asymmetry’ and ‘neutrality’. Psychoanalytic Diaries of the COVID-19 Pandemic will be of great interest to psychoanalysts in practice and in training, and to readers with an interest in clinical and personal accounts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Table of Contents:
Introduction 1. Psychoanalytic diary in the lockdown – Angelo Moroni 2. Clinical diary of a psychoanalyst in the disease. Round trip journey – Pietro Roberto Goisis Conclusions Acknowledgements Bibliography Filmography

About the Author :
Pietro Roberto Goisis, MD, is a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, full member of SPI-IPA and adjunct professor at the Catholic University of Milan, Italy. He has published numerous articles and is the author and editor of four books. Angelo Antonio Moroni is a psychologist and psychoanalyst based in Italy, and a full member of SPI-IPA. His work includes supervision of Italian and Swiss national health services and collaboration with public and private institutions. He has published several articles and has authored and edited four books.

Review :
"If you had any doubts that psychoanalysts are also human beings, and not technocrats of deciphering the unconscious, this book will remove them. The great collective crisis of the Covid 19 pandemic, involving therapists and patients alike, tested the depth and solidity of analytical bonds and work, even in a suddenly altered scenario. This extraordinary book bears clear and authentic testimony to the vital function of psychoanalysis in one of the most dramatic periods of contemporary history." -Stefano Bolognini, past President, International Psychoanalytical Association "A book with implicit echoes of Borges and Picasso in which the story of the Covid-19 pandemic is told from two different perspectives by a psychoanalyst-turned-patient and a psychoanalyst-turned-reporter. It gives an all-round view of what has been a dramatic time for us all. Readers will enrich it with their own perspectives and by so doing create a sort of ongoing and ever-expanding reading experience. A profound book of deep reflection." -Antonino Ferro, past President, Italian Psychoanalytical Society "The authors expose their often traumatic yet also uplifting experiences from inside the Covid-19 lockdown, including the life-changing implications of the pandemic on their sense of existential identity, personal relationships and professional practice. Written as intimate accounts in the style of diaries, and with wide-ranging cultural references, their exceptional book succeeds in being both intellectually stimulating and emotionally moving." -Andrea Sabbadini, Fellow, British Psychoanalytical Society "I found both “diaries” to be greatly evocative, and the difference in how they were written striking... It is generally the case that difficult experiences are unrecorded or unphotographed, and so become even more likely to slip from the symbolized content of mind. As the authors also suggest, I found this book to be like a photograph of the events of March to June 2020 and so it has an importance in our capacity to remain in contact with the experience we all went through." -Jayne Hankinson, review in The International Journal of Psychoanalysis