Contributors include Anthony Berendt, Birgitte Bonnerup, Leslie B. Brissett, Halina Brunning, Tim Dartington, Winnie Fei, M. Gerard Fromm, Zhang Jian Li, Olya Khaleelee, Andrzej Leder, Richard Morgan-Jones, Claudia Nagel, Mario Perini, Rob Stuart, Simon Western, and Barbara-Anne Wren.

The idea of The Covid Trail developed at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. Using the language of psychoanalysis and system psychodynamic thinking, it seeks to find a way to think about and understand the post-pandemic world from an international perspective. Motivated by a desire to express what is hidden, dangerous, and difficult to express, this book takes us on a trail. It starts with disquiet, disorientation, and loss in Part I. Through attempts to make sense of it all, a clear, albeit meandering and dangerous, path to follow is created, which snakes throughout the book. Part II takes a closer look at despair and resilience and pairs them through balancing power with vulnerability. Part III delves into the realm of psychoanalysis, to seek solace, or at least a deeper understanding of the phenomenon of the pandemic, and examines how we have sown our own environmental destruction. The final part offers a glimpse into the post-Covidian world and the longer and deeper impact of Covid upon our bodies, relationships, constructs, and civilisation.

The volume ends on a trail of each chapter’s essence, taking the reader from shock, disorientation, and fear through mobilisation of resilience, a realisation of the enormity of the changes humanity faces, and an attempt to comprehend these processes as a guide to this permanent “new normal”. All those with a desire to understand the way the world has changed will want to explore The Covid Trail.