The impact of COVID-19 pandemic: Psycho-social perception of the crisis and sense-making processes

The COVID-19 pandemic has generated a widespread state of uncertainty and disorientation regarding daily practices and beliefs, creating multiple sense-making processes. The purpose of the study, which is part of a larger international research endeavour, is to explore the psycho-social perception of the risk associated with the spread of Covid-19 during the lockdown in Italy (March 9th to May 4th, 2020). 2125 online questionnaire were collected in Italy and analysed with a Cluster Analysis procedure by a hierarchical classification method. We explored differences and peculiarities of the perception and appreciation of the pandemic crisis, perceived risks and resources in terms of individual attitudes, communitarian bonds, politics, beliefs and trust. Four profiles have been identified that refer to different models for assessing the situation and perception of risk;these models operate as affective-cognitive systems of sense-making and interpretation of the events occurring during the lockdown. Main psycho-social implications are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Identity and the courage to be: From Kierkegaard to COVID-19

Who am I? How can I be true to myself? How can I be authentic given the world I live in? These questions have been explored by existentialist philosophers, positioning courage in the face of dread as central to the development of a unique, embodied identity. Rather than being a fixed construct, based solely on the circumstances of birth or prescribed roles and stereotypes, identity can be created, after experience and despite anxiety, fleeting, liminal a part of the continued process of individuation. In this chapter I will trace the existentialist approach to identity, from the spiritual dimensions of Kierkegaard and Tillich to the humanist self-determined reinvention of Sartre. I will consider the ontology of selfhood further, particularly through the fleeting temporal and storied conceptualizations of Heidegger and Ricoeur, highlighting our identity as a continuous process of becoming. Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty will also remind us that identity cannot be understood with reference to materiality, specifically our historicity (being in the world) and corporeal body. Any discussion of roles and stereotypes, however, must also consider oppression and marginalization as primary threats to non-being. I will consider critical existentialisms, including the feminism of Simone de Beauvoir, the post-colonialism of Fanon, and the identity politics of Judith Butler. Lastly we will turn to the dynamics of identity in an era of global dread, exploring the ways in which the anthropocentrism of traditional existentialism is inadequate for the crises of climate and Covid-19. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Remaking time: Cultural semiotic transformations of temporality during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown.

This paper investigates one aspect of meaning making that occurs in the wake of systemic change. It addresses the question of how time is re-configured by socio-material changes resultant from the COVID-19 pandemic. Employing a semiotic perspective, we aim to describe a process of disruption and distress, which leads to a recognition of the oddness of 'covid-time.' This is characterised by distressing 'suspended waiting', a despairing frozen temporality. After this, this odd covid-time is semiotically assimilated into the old and familiar. Distressing 'suspended time' is transformed into 'productive time', 'normal time', and 'transformational time' as an attempt to regulate affect. By highlighting this semiotic shift, the theory of the Cultural Psychology of Semiotic Dynamics (Valsiner, 2014) is used to highlight how meaning is constructed using cultural resources.

The impact of COVID-19 pandemic: Psycho-social perception of the crisis and sense-making processes

The COVID-19 pandemic has generated a widespread state of uncertainty and disorientation regarding daily practices and beliefs, creating multiple sense-making processes. The purpose of the study, which is part of a larger international research endeavour, is to explore the psycho-social perception of the risk associated with the spread of Covid-19 during the lockdown in Italy (March 9th to May 4th, 2020). 2125 online questionnaire were collected in Italy and analysed with a Cluster Analysis procedure by a hierarchical classification method. We explored differences and peculiarities of the perception and appreciation of the pandemic crisis, perceived risks and resources in terms of individual attitudes, communitarian bonds, politics, beliefs and trust. Four profiles have been identified that refer to different models for assessing the situation and perception of risk;these models operate as affective-cognitive systems of sense-making and interpretation of the events occurring during the lockdown. Main psycho-social implications are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Identity and the courage to be: From Kierkegaard to COVID-19

Who am I? How can I be true to myself? How can I be authentic given the world I live in? These questions have been explored by existentialist philosophers, positioning courage in the face of dread as central to the development of a unique, embodied identity. Rather than being a fixed construct, based solely on the circumstances of birth or prescribed roles and stereotypes, identity can be created, after experience and despite anxiety, fleeting, liminal a part of the continued process of individuation. In this chapter I will trace the existentialist approach to identity, from the spiritual dimensions of Kierkegaard and Tillich to the humanist self-determined reinvention of Sartre. I will consider the ontology of selfhood further, particularly through the fleeting temporal and storied conceptualizations of Heidegger and Ricoeur, highlighting our identity as a continuous process of becoming. Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty will also remind us that identity cannot be understood with reference to materiality, specifically our historicity (being in the world) and corporeal body. Any discussion of roles and stereotypes, however, must also consider oppression and marginalization as primary threats to non-being. I will consider critical existentialisms, including the feminism of Simone de Beauvoir, the post-colonialism of Fanon, and the identity politics of Judith Butler. Lastly we will turn to the dynamics of identity in an era of global dread, exploring the ways in which the anthropocentrism of traditional existentialism is inadequate for the crises of climate and Covid-19. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Remaining Human in COVID-19: Dialogues on Psychogeography

Post-COVID-19 environments have challenged our embodied identities with these challenges coming from a variety of domains, that is, microbiological, semiotic, and digital. We are embedded in a new complex set of relations, with other species, with cultural signs, and with technology and venturing further into an era that pushes back on our anthropocentrism to create a post-human dystopia. This does not imply that we are less human or forfeit ethics in this state of flux, but can lead to considering new ways of being alive and humanists. The aim of this project was to explore walking through our associated psychogeographies as captured in photographs and text from individual walks, as the means by which to characterize responses to the distress of the pandemic and to assess resistance to non-being. The psychogeographies were the starting points for our dialogic enquiry between authors who each represent living theory, representing their own emergent knowledge, inseparable from personal commitments and history. Walking and the associated images and reflections, provided a way to regulate our affect, reconnecting with our bodies, leading to understand and adapt to new meanings of context and ways of coping and healing in this new becoming. The interdisciplinarity of philosophy, social psychology, botany, and clinical psychology is nonetheless rejected in favour of multi-vocality;each author representing their own emergent, living theory, inseparable from personal commitments, and history.