Psychotherapy in the time of COVID-19 (psychotherapy changes shape and steps forward)

Abstract

In this article, I articulate the challenges and reshaping that the global pandemic has brought to the practice and ethics of a relational transactional analysis psychotherapy. I describe the interweave of political, social and psychosocial contexts which have led to life-threatening emergencies within a society in which inequalities are endemic; and link the impact of these contexts to a relational transactional analysis practice using, as a compass, features of classical transactional analysis, radical psychiatry and feminist thought. I outline an approach to the work which accounts for the life-changing impact of the pandemic, which I call ‘the COVID Third’. Speaking from the experience of COVID-19 in the United Kingdom, I imagine, other countries will have experienced different political situations but have associated emotional personal responses which are brought to psychotherapy.