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The Nobel Prize-winning author Albert Camus (1948) makes the following observation in The Plague: “a pestilence isn't a thing made to man's measure; therefore we tell ourselves that pestilence is a mere bogy of the mind, a bad dream that will pass away. But it doesn't always pass away and, from one bad dream to another, it is men who pass away, and the humanists first of all, because they haven't taken their precautions. Our townsfolk were not more to blame than others; they forgot to be modest, that was all, and thought that everything still was possible for them: which presupposed that pestilences were impossible. They went on doing business, arranged for journeys, and formed views. How should they have given a thought to anything like plague, which rules out any future, cancels journeys, silences the exchange of views. They fancied themselves free, and no one will ever be free so long as there are pestilences” (p. 37).
As I write these words, the world is in the grip of another plague—one that has many of the same characteristics as the pestilence described by Camus. Death is everywhere, but many citizens have continued to open their shops as usual, go on vacations, and insist that they are free to do as they like. For us, a catastrophe has already occurred, and while we wait for the next jolt, we try our best to understand what is happening, with the full knowledge that partial understanding may be the best we can do. We know that we are all vulnerable—patients and analysts alike. We also know that it is the analyst's role to contain anxiety and vulnerability in our patients. But analysts are fallible, and sometimes the patient may be containing the analyst's anxieties. The Covid era has been a great leveler.