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Three years ago the title of this book would have made no sense to any of us. Now the neologism ‘Covidian’ needs no explanation. We have all become increasingly preoccupied with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), its impact on individual immunological reactions, and the general physical and psychological consequences and societal responses of what we call COVID-19. The House of Lords, in which I serve, set up a special Select Committee in June 2020 to consider the long-term implications of the pandemic on the economic and societal wellbeing of the United Kingdom. This COVID-19 Committee completed its work on 30 November 2021 and published a series of reports – committees.parliament.uk. As the only medically qualified member of the Committee, I was immediately taken with the title of this book and impressed that Howard Levine and Ana de Staal had been able, so quickly, to bring together papers by a range of psychoanalytic practitioners from many different countries. The publication of the book in 2021 was a significant achievement; however, they faced some of the same dilemmas as the House of Lords Committee. We had not expected that 2 years on we would still not be certain about the origins of the virus, nor do we know with any certainty how long it will be before it moves from being a global pandemic to ‘merely’ endemic. As Howard Levine says in his thoughtful concluding chapter, ‘it is probably too soon for anything more than provisional first impressions about its impact and opportunities’. Inevitably, some of the views expressed have been overtaken by events and discoveries, and many key questions remain unanswered. Although the pandemic has produced some new phenomena, mostly it has exaggerated and accelerated technological and societal changes that were already under way. It also exploded into societies experiencing other major threats, including climate change, violent political conflict, inc