“Loneliness is more dangerous to us than the Corona”
[Note: The introduction to this issue of The Future of Professional Psychology is offered both in English and Hebrew]
This issue was composed in the middle of 2020 during the second huge wave of the Covid-19 pandemic emerged in Israel. These months were experienced as an existential crisis. A crisis is usually defined as a major dysfunction in one of the main subsystems of an organism — a human individual, a family, a community, etc. — that threatens its existence. In the current reality more than one subsystem is in existential danger, and in some cases, the survival of all major subsystems is at risk.
The threatened subsystems include healthcare, the economy, the social political system, and security. In addition, multiple levels of our existence are concurrently at risk, from the individual level, to the nuclear and extended family, through the community and the state, to global humanity. Obviously, the pandemic’s impact on every organism is different. Some suffer more from the disease itself, while others suffer more from the economic or social crisis.
My own personal experience of the situation is very intense. Therefore, when PSP President Dr. Bergquist invited me to edit a special issue of the new school’s journal devoted to Israel, I accepted his invitation on the condition that the issue will focus on the various challenges Israel is facing in different fields of psychology during the Covid-19 pandemic. The new journal, The Future of Professional Psychology, is an innovative professional journal published in virtual format, which makes it possible to include video interviews with written materials and links to a variety of existing publications.
The current issue, “Israel in Corona Times – Psychological Perspectives”, can be regarded as a kaleidoscope in which multiple practitioners from different psychological fields – clinical, educational, medical, art therapy, bibliotherapy, and animal therapy – present their experience and point of view on the contemporary challenges and coping strategies in their field of expertise. In this issue you will find three articles as well as eight filmed Zoom interviews in Hebrew that are accompanied by a brief summary in English, prepared by each interviewee in question.
The articles are an evaluation study (Dimona Yaniv), a case study (Sheerie Lotan Mesika), and an opinion essay presenting a personal viewpoint on three psychological fields (Gill Erlich). Each Zoom interview provides a personal testimony about challenges and professional means of coping in this unexpected and unprecedented reality. In the concluding article of this issue I summarize the main themes that emerged from all the contributed materials. On the one hand, the concluding article presents findings of a phenomenological study in which all the materials were analyzed in a content analysis. On the other hand, since all the raw materials are transparent to the readers and viewers, they can reach their own integrated conclusions on the subject.
All of the articles can be accessed by linking to the Table of Contents and then clicking on the title of a specific article (the link is embedded in the title). It will take you directly to the article.
More than a virtual journal, FPP is also an interactive platform in which the readers are invited to share their responses, insights, and thoughts, and contribute of their experience. I invite each one of you personally to read, listen, and respond from your own perspective.
Wishing you an enjoyable and enriching reading and viewing experience,
Varda Silberberg
Editor
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