The Pandemic Lens^®

Are you running out of “cope” and need some new ideas about how to get through this pandemic that is showing no sign of ending any time soon? In my 20+ years as a psychologist, I’ve found three factors that can make the difference between barely surviving a crisis or both surviving and thriving the…

On November 3, the day of the United States presidential election, more people in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Minnesota tested positive for the coronavirus than on any other day since the pandemic began. Unfortunately, the record for the greatest number of daily coronavirus cases has been broken several times since then. How does this rampant illness…

Long before the pandemic hit, the World Health Organization (WHO) had declared 2020 The Year of the Nurse, and now, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, it seems especially fitting to acknowledge the work of nurses, for whose life hasn’t been touched by a nurse? That degree of commitment to patients happens not just…

My wife Cathy and I live in a subdivision called Margie’s Cove, where we have close friendships with a number of our neighbors. All through the spring and summer and now in a stretch of warm autumn temperatures, we’ve been able to gather on patios and in backyards, observing a social distance of course, just…

People have been responding to pandemics for centuries with fear, panic, avoidance, blame, uncertainty, and confusion. How did our ancestors get through? How do we carry on through the COVID-19 pandemic? Lately, I’ve been compelled to read stories about how others have survived something. The circumstances are less important to me than how they got…

I teach in a suburban high school. Our town decided to go with the Hybrid Model, but did not commit to the decision until mid-August, which left little time to make things happen: schedule 1800 students, reconfigure the building and solidify course re-planning. Kids arrived physically on 16 September. Since then this is what is…

The pandemic and this year’s relentless stream of scarier-than-any-true-crime news is doing strange things to many of us. I had two dogs when it started. Now I have three. Desperate times call for desperate measures is what I’m telling people. This new dog was irresistible—as a puppy, she’s almost embarrassingly cute, Hallmarkian in a way…

After spending two decades facilitating dialogues for some of the world’s most intractable conflicts (Israel/Palestine, Northern Ireland, Colombia, Sri Lanka, US/Cuba, Libya to name a few), one day I had the startling realization that I might have uncovered a missing link in my understanding of conflict. Why was it that parties could not sign on…

Deadlines don’t care about pandemics, but it’s very challenging to craft a novel when the dumpster fire that is 2020 is more consuming than any work of fiction could ever be. This year is full of tangled storylines, confusing subplots, and conflicts that never get resolved. As @mia_sade’s viral post pointed out, “So many plot…