As they battled psychological toll of pandemic, so did their therapist

It was almost Shabbat, but Ariel Friedman was too busy to bake challah.

Anxiety among the Bay Area therapist's clients was spiking. It was mid-March 2020: More than 1,500 Americans had tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Forty-one had died. Friedman's clients — some with post-traumatic stress, others with obsessive-compulsive disorder or depression — wanted reassurance. But there was none to be given.

Her office staff was on edge, too, as plans were made, then remade. They'd definitely stay open; they might stay open; no, they'd definitely close. Sentiments changed four times that day, sending Friedman chasing clients through the waiting area on their way out with updates. This new scary thing, this mercurial disease with the strange shape and the regal name, was upending everything.

In the days and weeks that followed, many states, including California, imposed stay-at-home orders, which sent an "avalanche of existential trauma" onto the laptop screens of therapists like Friedman, who had suddenly become front-line workers in an intensifying mental health crisis, helping clients battle malaise, isolation and fear during virtual sessions.

For the first time