Freudian glitch: mind the technology gap

ABSTRACT

As Covid-19 forced psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and many other healthcare practitioners to use online platforms, internet connectivity took on new meaning. While bothersome for both patient and therapist, technology glitches can offer an opportunity to see unconscious relationship dynamics come through in sessions, in a way they might not in the consulting room. While the therapist usually controls the frame through how they arrange their office, internet glitches can come from either the therapist’s or the patient’s side. These glitches can be thought of as either purely technological or as an unconscious enactment, more like a parapraxis. Both kinds of glitches can offer the opportunity to uncover meaning in the relationship. Exploration might help elucidate either the patient’s reaction to the technological glitch or the unconscious meaning behind a parapraxis glitch. Like a ‘Freudian slip’ of the tongue in a typical session, a Freudian glitch can be fertile ground for further examination and connection with patients.

KEYWORDS:

• Telehealth
• telemedicine
• unconscious
• transference
• parapraxis
• Freudian slip
• online therapy
• Covid-19

Acknowledgments

Thank you so much to my colleagues who offered valuable support in earlier versions of this paper.

Disclosure statement

The author reports no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Amanda K. Hutchison

Amanda K. Hutchison, MD, is a graduate of the University of Colorado School of Medicine 2010. She completed psychiatry residency and child and adolescent psychiatry fellowship at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in 2015. She completed her adult and child psychoanalytic training at the Denver Institute for Psychoanalysis in 2020. She is a faculty member of The Denver Institute for Psychoanalysis and is a Clinical Instructor of Psychiatry at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.