The trauma of the Coronavirus pandemic

The result of the author's research and the urgency of the moment, Trauma in the Coronavirus Pandemic outlines the impressions and experiences of the Covid-19 crisis, especially from a Brazilian perspective.

In "Trauma in the Coronavirus Pandemic," psychoanalyst Joel Birman analyzes the psychic dimension of the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting its political, social, economic, ecological, cultural, ethical, and scientific dimensions. Written in the heat of the moment, the book draws attention to the issue of trauma, closely linked to the notion of a humanitarian, subjective, and national catastrophe in which the Brazilian population finds itself. It is a necessary book for all who wish to understand and subjectively process this brutal period.

For Luis David Castiel, professor and researcher in the Department of Epidemiology at the Sérgio Arouca National School of Public Health/Fiocruz, "Joel wrote an essay with a factual summary of the pandemic in Brazil and provides a valuable psychoanalytic study of its repercussions in terms of the catastrophe/trauma dimension. It will certainly serve above all to provide insights capable of enabling consistent ways to decipher the reasons for the subjective suffering caused by the daily enigmas of COVID."

Excerpt from the book: "The assumption of the imperative of the purse in place of the imperative of life, by some rulers, implied a perverse and cruel act. According to their political and electoral calculations, they preferred to sacrifice thousands of lives and pile up the corpses of their citizens rather than care about what is truly worthy of value: the life of each individual, in its unparalleled and incomparable singularity."