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.

Eupsychian Versus Authoritarian Leadership: Existential–Humanistic Underpinnings and Empirical Support

“…Furthermore, to supplement the relatively limited body of explicitly humanistic leadership literature to date (e.g., Beshai, 2012; DuBose, 2020; McWhinney, 1984; Miller et al, 2010; Raskin, 2020; Rego et al, 2008; Saiter, 2009; Schott, 1992), in preparing this article, we intentionally strived to build bridges between existential–humanistic and mainstream psychology by drawing from the latter to provide empirical support for Maslow’s theorizing in the spirit of Bland (2019), Bland and DeRobertis (2020), and Kaufman (2020). In so doing, we have (a) further demonstrated that his ideas on eupsychian leadership “appear to be more realistic than some criticisms regarding their allegedly utopian aims would suggest” (Rego et al, 2008, p. 187) and, therefore, (b) further contributed to an emerging body of literature that serves to clear up misconceptions about Maslow (see also Bland & DeRobertis, 2019, 2020; Compton, 2018; Henry, 2017; Hoffman, 2017) as an antidote to the “recurrent Maslow bashing that one finds in the literature” (Winston et al, 2017, p. 309).…”

“…Maslow declined the opportunity to serve as inaugural president of the Association for Humanistic Psychology in 1963 because he believed that the then-fledgling organization should develop without a leader (Vich, 2008)—seemingly reflecting DuBose’s (2020) observation that “an existentialist leads no one and is led by no one” (para. 1).…”

Truth, freedom, love, hope, and power: An existential rights paradigm for anti-oppressive psychological praxis.

“…Existentialists such as Frankl encourage humans to avoid becoming stuck in despair amid even the bleakest of circumstances, because to them hope is a life-or-death choice of attitude. To assuage the terror and despair of the COVID−19 pandemic, existential psychologist Todd DuBose proclaims that hope is our “ontological condition” as human beings, evidenced by the fact that the “invincibility of hope” has prevailed throughout history in the most seemingly impossible of circumstances (DuBose, 2020, p. 567). Hope does not mean sugar-coating situations by looking at the bright side but becoming aware that every moment of life offers renewed possibility for the future—such as possibilities to join in solidarity to fight against conditions of trauma and oppression: “When asked how to talk with children about catastrophes and disasters, Fred Rogers said, ‘Tell them to look at all the people helping.’ Hope does not need a receipt to be itself; whatever the response to our hope, hoping itself opens worlds” (DuBose, 2020, p. 567).…”