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The global health crisis has brought with it many social ills. The lockdowns and other social isolation measures have made many people turn inward, feel helpless and hopeless, resulting, arguably, in a potential mental health crisis. There have been reports of a significant recent increase in substance use, domestic violence, and suicide rates in the UK as well as USA. Many people, mostly women, have lost their jobs during the pandemic, due to a shrinking economy and the demands of home schooling; the disparity in income levels between genders has thus opened up and disadvantaged children have suffered the most for not having access to computers and the internet, thus falling significantly behind academically. In short, we now live in a far less equal world, with little or no support for those who are most in need. It can be said that part of society’s ‘social capital’ has been lost with this pandemic.
As child psychotherapists, we feel the need to mobilise, in order to help address some of these problems. Jonathan Sklar’s book is an excellent starting point for us to think about where we might start. He identifies the need to support communities to come to terms with the losses, resisting destructive prejudices that such a crisis environment can breed. Sklar reminds us what can happen when we avoid facing our losses, turning to denial and illusion instead.
Dark Times was written before the coronavirus pandemic, but attends to the most burning issues of our times: the rise of nationalism, the return of totalitarian parties in Europe, the rise of the alt-right and white supremacist movement in the US, and the rise of authoritarian governments worldwide. Sklar, being an adult analyst, focuses on the adult world by questioning: ‘Why do governments sometimes turn against their citizens?’
It is worth remembering Young-Bruehl’s (2012) concept of ‘childism’, i.e., a rising prejudice against children, encompassing various acts against them, which demarcate them as different an