Separation, connection, and the anticipation of uncertain (digital) futures: Care, COVID-19 lockdowns and mental health

ABSTRACT

This chapter will explore a spatio-temporal approach to psychological experience to frame some of the potential impacts of the Covid-19 'Lockdown'. Albert Camus's The Plague stated that the greatest suffering of the book's plague was separation, and yet the current Covid-19-enforced lockdown differs significantly from Camus' fictional plague as the powers to connect are far greater in today's 'digital age'. Moreover, the lockdown itself acts as a 'great connector' through being a global event eliciting new shared feelings, in which strands of individuality give way to the emergence of new collective histories. The connective power of the shared feelings elicited by global lockdowns presents challenges for imagining futures, with so much uncertainty existing as to the shape of the post-pandemic world. This chapter asks what we need to consider when imagining forms of future care might motivate life after the lockdown, with reference to the field of mental health. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)