Epidemic

An epidemic is not an individual event — it is a phenomenon that extends beyond the individual, a pattern that moves through cities, through countries, sometimes across continents. Medically, it is the widespread transmission of a pathogen that jumps from person to person, faster than the immune system can keep up. A virus, a bacterium, a germ — and suddenly it is not just individual bodies that are affected, but a collective.

This makes the psychosomatic question difficult at first glance. Because when many people fall ill simultaneously, the issue seems to slip out of the personal sphere. It looks like a natural event — like rain or wind, something that simply happens. And that feeling is often the first thing an epidemic triggers in us: the sense that we are at its mercy. That something has struck us that is larger than we are.