ABSTRACT
This Part involves reconnecting (after a period of quarantine and self-imposed isolation), albeit gingerly, with others and with oneself. I treat doctors who, for example, are still stressed to the max; they figure out how to curtail a sense of failure and inadequacy. Some patients apply for jobs remotely, perfecting a screen persona. They let go of old assumptions about what they “should” be, and think in terms of what is possible. This is not a lowering of their sights; rather, it is a cultivation of peripheral vision. Such resilience requires hope, a version of the possible. Possibility turns out to be a complicated term. If it replaces old certainties, it still allows us to consider the future from a new, unaccustomed angle of approach. There are no guarantees, but neither are doors to the future entirely shut. We simply have to adapt. Ultimately, the chapter concerns where and how to set limits, and how to enforce them. Many of my patients have never faced such questions so directly or with such psychologically potent consequences.
