Isolation, Loneliness and Aloneness in the Age of Covid-19: Reflections on Clinical Experiences

The Covid-19 pandemic brought a heightened fear of death and illness, and increased experiences of isolation, loneliness and aloneness. In this article we describe clinical experiences of psychotherapists in Argentina, the UK and Germany in order to explore how the impacts of the pandemic are variously felt and mediated by inner resources. We explore the capacity to relate internally to good experiences of infancy and a secure internal world, and the risks of loneliness, and interpersonal and intrapsychic withdrawal, that lead to vulnerability in patients and therapists. We contrast instances where psychotherapy in response to increased fears of death, infection and isolation is facilitative of change and growth, with situations where perverse, destructive or defensive relating predominate. We ask if we are witnessing and, through our therapeutic activities, contributing to the emergence of new ways of understanding the internal conflicts of this Covid-19 age, and tentatively identify some key emerging themes; the capacity for facilitative interactions and change; identifications with the powerful virus; an increase in paranoid anxieties and the potential for a more considerate, 'care-full' way of relating.