When COVID-19 Meets Pandemic Hope: Existential Care of, and in, the Impossible

Abstract

This article is an adaptation of a talk given to the International Institute for Existential-Humanistic Psychology in Beijing, China, March 14, 2020. I describe the existential concerns embedded in the biological discourse related to COVID-19, and offer the proposal that hope is as pandemic as COVID-19, if not more so, and invite us to think of the category, ”pandemic,” in existential terms. Shortly after this talk was given, I found out that I tested positive with COVID-19, thus adding a lived existentiality to what was written.