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.

This description is a follow up to the piece, “When COVID-19 Meets Pandemic Hope: Existential Care of, and in, the Impossible,” and offers my own personal lived experience of my partner and I surviving COVID-19. I also offer commentary on the danger of hermeneutical violence and the healing power of hermeneutical reframe.

The field of psychotherapy is in a beautiful crisis. In a four-corner ring are proponents demanding hard evidence for any care offered, counterinsurgents deconstructing the delusion of evidence-based frames of reference, neuroscientists challenging the efficacy of nonchemical interventions despite ideas of plasticity blowing open many foundational presumptions, and practitioners of various orientations converting to being common factors advocates. Add to this proverbial gumbo the increasing slouch toward technotherapy with Geek culture rapidly developing therapy applications and remote care that could reach millions globally and one wonders whether Heidegger (1976Heidegger ( /1981) was all too on the mark when he exclaimed, "Only a god can save us now" (p. 46).If a god cannot save us, then could at least a decent human being offer us a word of guidance and solace? Such is the balm of David Elkins's (2015) new book, The Human Elements of Psychotherapy: A Nonmedical Model of Emotional Healing, published by the American Psychological Association. Elkins's book calls for a summit where the truths of various perspectives and needs can be addressed in his wonderfully integrative and progressive read, critique, and project of therapeutic care. The win-win possibility is a common factors model of psychotherapy predicated on the centrality of human elements.In Elkins's familiar style, he writes warmly, but boldly, easily accessed, but with no dogmatic assumptions left unchallenged. Elkins's writing is neither hamstrung with hundreds of pages of tangential history and philosophy nor so specialized that only elite circles could understand and follow his argument. He writes substantially, in a straightforward, succinct style, and with deep and felt conviction. He sacrifices neither substance nor simplicity in his humane style of communicating. In the field where "human elements"-valuing students are continually challenged as to their "evidence based" foundations, Elkins's book is helpful as a quick and powerful reference and, more important, as a balm for deep wounds suffered by such students dismissed by logical positivistic fundamentalists in the field occurring with way too much frequency.This book is also a great introduction for those unfamiliar with a common factors model of therapeutic care, as well as a catalyst for discussion among various professionals as the industry of care becomes more interdisciplinary and interprofessional. His book is accessible to novice practitioners, which is important for early exposure to training in the diversity of thought and praxis regarding therapeutic care. To this point, Elkins in his

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