Doubters and Believers in the Time of the Pandemic

Until now, the great divide separating we, the people, had been defined chiefly by where one stood regarding our current president. But as the coronavirus raced its way cross country, a new divide opened up between “doubters,” who’ve insisted the viral threat isn’t nearly as bad as some make it seem, and “believers,” who are quaking in their boots, fearing the end is near. While these two ends of the human response spectrum—the fearless and the fearful—have coexisted for eons, the extremity of this outbreak has widened the gap, compounding the challenges we collectively face as a nation.

Some disbelievers consider the protective measures put in place (if not in every place) draconian, extreme, and unnecessary. After all, they complain, most who become infected get only somewhat sick, so how can one justify bringing everyday life and the economy to a halt? Such attitudes terrify believers who do the math: if one careless freedom-lover gets infected, over the next month a hundred more Americans will become infected and two will die. Is one person’s right to freely mingle more precious than another’s right to life? Those who buy the grave projections offered by epidemiologists deeply distrust disbelievers, who, they fear, might blithely “party on”—selfishly placing others at risk by failing to follow the recommended precautions. Shaming such disbelieving noncompliers has become commonplace—whether they are called out publicly or are privately held in contempt in the confines of one’s mind. And so the divide widens.

Beyond a doubt, minimizer/deniers—as they are called—tend to be right most of the time. After all, those who time after time anticipate the worst tend to be wrong time and again. To the extent the odds are in their favor, minimizers can be smug and dismissive—sometimes to the point of being contemptuous—toward those they consider Chicken Littles who, when hit with a twig, panic that the sky is falling. We can all laugh at such neurotic, “catastrophizing” tendencies, but this time around it’s the frightened who likely have it right. Sorry to say.

While some analysts seem relatively comfortable with their decision to work remotely, others are conflicted. Is continuing to treat patients in person a moral imperative for the practicing clinician? I, for one, felt guilty when I considered the prospect of physically distancing myself from patients, who—I feared—might unconsciously experience my doing so as rejecting. Moreover, I had my doubts whether such distancing was even necessary given the one-on-one nature of psychoanalytic practice. My own path home came late, after most who work in my psychotherapy building had already left. I had every intention of sticking it out—seeing the few patients still willing to come, treating the remainder remotely—until my eldest son called me up and chewed me out, reminding me of what I was trying hard to ignore—that my bouts of severe asthmatic bronchitis combined with my age increased the chances I’d die if infected. ¹ Beyond self-concern was the danger of exposing my patients to aerosols emitted by others in whose precise space they’d have to sit or lie. So home I went. But when I heard that some analysts were continuing to see a few patients in their offices I felt unsettled. Were they being more responsible than I, or less? Did caring for and about my patients require my physical presence, or was I caring for them by protecting them from infection and by modeling a willingness to do without—sacrificing the more satisfying experience of in-person treatment for the common cause. Or was I being cautious beyond reason? I just couldn’t tell for sure how to be more sure about what was right given the circumstances.

One of my supervisees relayed an instance when, upon learning of her plan to work remotely from home, a patient of hers scoffed, expressing strong disapproval that she’d given in to fear rather than modeling courage in the face of adversity by keeping her office open day after day, come what may. Such shaming, though transparent, still stung to the extent it played upon her fear that she might, in fact, be overreacting. We can all imagine ourselves into her situation. And while such displays of contempt surface most readily with psychotherapists who demand and withstand brutal honesty from their patients, surely such attitudes are rampant among those who refuse to let fear get the better of them. It’s a matter of pride, or so it seems. “Keep calm and carry on,” as the Brits were fond of saying as they faced the Second World War.

A particular clinical exchange, which contributed to my decision to work remotely, involved a patient who was exquisitely sensitive to any hint of rejection. This patient had a habit of pulling a spare chair well into my physical space, which normally I had little difficulty tolerating. Under present conditions, however, I felt I could no longer risk having him sit that close, particularly seeing that he very much minimized the risk of infection and, accordingly, could not be trusted to take steps to ensure he not become a disease vector. When I insisted he stay the requisite six feet away, he stormed out of my office, slamming the door, even as I beseeched him to stay and discuss the matter.

While it’s an analyst’s stock and trade to awaken patients to the workings of their inner lives, it’s sometimes necessary to do likewise when it comes to a patient’s tendency to minimize or deny harsh external realities that demand acknowledgment and modified behavior. Such was the case with this man, who was so offended by my request that he sit farther away that he announced plans to hop the next flight back to his hometown on the East Coast, reasoning that if it weren’t safe to fly, airlines would not be permitted to continue flights.

Another patient showed comparable signs of failing to adapt. He went to eight markets over the course of a weekend searching for items he typically ate, ignoring the new reality that requires us all to “make do” given the circumstances. On the other end of the spectrum are patients whose fears lead them to act irrationally. One female patient disposed of any canned food from China, believing it could be contaminated with the coronavirus, which in fact cannot live for long outside a living host. Another patient, an anxiety-ridden woman in her seventies who lived alone, became terrified that the delivery of printed documents to her door would surely infect her. Particularly troubling to me was NPR coverage of protesters in the U.K. who were burning down 5G towers believing that they, not the coronavirus, were responsible for the Covid symptoms.

Americans have struggled with the imposition of social distancing guidelines. Adherence to governmental restrictions is highest under dictatorships, like the one in China, or in countries that respect central authority, such as Germany. “Freedom-loving” Americans bristle at the exercise of governmental power over their inalienable rights. For many, the spirit of independence is in our DNA. Hundreds of thousands of Americans gave their lives so that we could remain the Land of the Free, which explains in part why it’s a bitter pill for many Americans to agree to relinquish certain of our rights for the common good—a concept that plays better in communally centered countries like Japan, where, even during pre-Covid times, the preponderance of those who donned masks did so to keep from passing on infection, not to protect themselves from getting an infection.

It’s important we not let the tension between doubters and believers get the better of us. Contempt for the fearful, hatred of those who refuse to see things for what they are, only complicates the challenges we face. People vary regarding how long it takes them to wrap their minds around something as unthinkable as a pandemic, and it’s important to recognize the all-too-human tendency to deny an unbelievable bit of reality until one can do so no longer.

Every analyst appreciates that people believe what they do for reasons that often have little to do with the situation at hand. Steadfast denial in the face of unbearable or inconvenient reality is a time-honored tendency used to varying degrees by one and all. Consider the initial human reaction many have to the sudden and unexpected loss of a loved one—a reality that typically takes time to sink in. We can neither hope nor expect everyone to face up to the grim reality of a pandemic at precisely the same speed. Such are human nature and human variability, and we’d better face that fact if we hope to have empathy for our fellow Americans—whether they be doubters or believers.