The Pandemic in America: A Crisis for Democracy

ABSTRACT

Considering the pandemic and the social protest that followed in the United States, this article looks at the history of writing on climate change in psychoanalysis, the different effects of social, mental, and ecological factors, the changing space of clinical work and its meanings and the interweave of the pandemic and social protest movements and analysis of structural racism.

KEYWORDS:

• Apres-coup
• helplessness
• interpellation
• pluperfect errand
• self-care
• omnipotence
• ecologies

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Sandra Hershberg for inviting me to work on this project as the pandemic unfolded and to the other organizers of the daylong event on May 2, 2020. They include Janna Sandmeyer, Eleanor Howe, Dawn Taylor, and Nancy Der.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ ICP+P, May 2, 2020; Psychohistory Conference NYC; Psychohistory Conference, May 16, 2020; Freud Lecture, University of Essex, May 29, 2020.

² Adverse Childhood Experiences have a potent effect on adult health and physical vulnerability (Clarke, 2017).

³ Much has been published in leading medical journals about the phenomenon of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. The resulting condition, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), has had a societal effect comparable only to the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918. As the flow of clinical science has better informed the contemporary narratives, more is being learned about which individuals and groups experience the most dire complications. Researchers have emphasized older age, male sex, hypertension, diabetes, obesity, concomitant cardiovascular diseases (including coronary artery disease and heart failure), and myocardial injury as important risk factors associated with worse outcomes; specifically, case-fatality rates vary over 100%.What is currently known about these differences in disease risk and fatality rates? In Chicago, more than 50% of COVID-19 cases and nearly 70% of COVID-19 deaths involve black individuals, although blacks make up only 30% of the population. Moreover, these deaths are concentrated mostly in just 5 neighborhoods on the city’s South Side. In Louisiana, 70.5% of deaths have occurred among black persons, who represent 32.2% of the state’s population. In Michigan, 33% of COVID-19 cases and 40% of deaths have occurred among black individuals, who represent 14% of the population. If New York City has become the epicenter, this disproportionate burden is validated again in underrepresented minorities, especially blacks and now Hispanics, who have accounted for 28% and 34% of deaths, respectively (population representation: 22% and 29%, respectively).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Adrienne E. Harris

Adrienne E. Harris, Ph.D., is affiliated with New York University, Sandor Ferenczi Center, and the New School for Social Research.