Playing and virtual reality: Teleanalysis with children and adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT

What has come into question in our analytic practice with children and adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic? Do the new practices related to the virtual allow the creation of a therapeutic playground and the continuity of an analytic process? In the literature, the effectiveness and the perplexities raised in teleanalysis with adults are described. Conversely, no research on the use of the virtual in child analysis is available. Given the specificity of the developmental age, the three authors present their clinical experience and theoretical and technical reflections on the remote setting with children and adolescents. Particular emphasis is given to the technical changes and to the deep meaning that these changes have had in reference to the analytic relationship. Using the Winnicottian theoretical vertex, the opposition between fetishistic and transitional use, the denial of separation and recognition of otherness in the analytic virtual space will be discussed using clinical examples. The video tool may generate in children a great excitement and unleash the infantile sexual perversions. The co-creation of an intermediate virtual playground allows sufficient psychic continuity to work on the unconscious material, and even to make emerge previous traumas that then find a chance to be worked-through.

Video Abstract

Read the transcript

Watch the video on Vimeo

KEYWORDS:

• teleanalysis
• child and adolescent analysis
• covid pandemic
• transitional space
• object fetishization
• denial of separation

Notes

1 The expression “collective trauma” refers specifically in this paper to the world health crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.