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A “Viral Epistolary” and Psychosocial Spirituality: Restoring Transcendental Meaning During COVID-19 Through a Digital Community Letter-Writing Project

Pastoral psychology, 2022-04, Vol.71 (2), p.153-171 [Peer Reviewed Journal]

The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2022 ;The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2022. ;ISSN: 0031-2789 ;EISSN: 1573-6679 ;DOI: 10.1007/s11089-021-00991-0 ;PMID: 35034983

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  • Title:
    A “Viral Epistolary” and Psychosocial Spirituality: Restoring Transcendental Meaning During COVID-19 Through a Digital Community Letter-Writing Project
  • Author: De Vincenzo, Ciro ; Serio, Flavia ; Franceschi, Anita ; Barbagallo, Simone ; Zamperini, Adriano
  • Subjects: Behavioral Science and Psychology ; Clinical Psychology ; Community ; Coping ; Coronaviruses ; COVID-19 ; Crises ; Cross Cultural Psychology ; Disruption ; Healing ; Meaning ; Pandemics ; Psychology ; Psychosocial factors ; Religious Studies ; Semiotics ; Sociology ; Spirituality ; Writing
  • Is Part Of: Pastoral psychology, 2022-04, Vol.71 (2), p.153-171
  • Description: This article outlines the results of a three-month-long community letter-writing and letter-sharing project called “Viral Epistolary” (VE), which we completed online in Italy during the first wave of COVID-19 lockdowns. In it, we collected 340 digital letters from all over the country and connected thousands of people through epistolary exchanges. We used the genre of letters as a mediating, meaning-making, and (auto)biographical tool whereby people could share their experiences of domestic isolation and physical distancing, thus creating a community of support. Based on a well-documented understanding of meaning-making as a core human endeavor, especially in times of social disruption and personal crisis, this article frames sense-making as a transcendental and even spiritual process that yields broad principles for organizing life. Thus, the research adopts a psychosocial perspective on spirituality and applies thematic analysis to qualitatively analyze written narratives. The results reveal that many respondents underwent a three-part, not-necessarily-sequential process of collapsing, self-distancing, and transcending during lockdown, which allowed them to rearrange themselves according to the new total social fact of the pandemic. Through this process, respondents negotiated themes of semiotic crisis, striving for meaning, and beyond meaning (the essential). Finally, the article discusses the role of meaning as a transcendental component of psychosocial meaning-making coping processes and tries to highlight how shared writing experiences can stimulate personal and communal healing processes in the wake of social crises.
  • Publisher: New York: Springer US
  • Language: English
  • Identifier: ISSN: 0031-2789
    EISSN: 1573-6679
    DOI: 10.1007/s11089-021-00991-0
    PMID: 35034983
  • Source: ProQuest One Psychology
    ProQuest Central
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