Psychoanalysis in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic: traumas, challenges and perspectives

Abstract

Objective: to know the scientific production of psychoanalysis in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and the implications and challenges arising from this new reality. Methods: integrative review carried out in 2021, whose guiding question was: What is the role of Psychoanalysis in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, and how does it propose to deal with the challenges and present new perspectives for its praxis? The following databases were listed: Virtual Health Library, Electronic Psychology Portal and Scientific Electronic Library Online, with interactions in the following descriptors: COVID-19, psicanálise e isolamento social and pulsão de morte, and the Critical Appraisal Skills Programm criteria and in a timeless way for article selection. Results: The search showed 16 publications, from which three categories were constructed: Trauma, drive and death in the context of the pandemic (7 articles); The challenges for a new practice of psychoanalytic care (6 articles); and Perspectives for a new model of psychoanalytic care (3 articles). Conclusion: The productions showed that Psychoanalysis has incorporated new technologies to offer a contemporary model of intervention through listening and also looking, diving deeply into the individuality of the human being, in those aspects that escape voluntary and conscious control, of a phenomenon, which is critical, making it possible to overcome, at least on a psychic level, this pandemic.