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1. As per the agreement between the IJP, the IPA and Wiley, copyright for this article is retained by the contributors. This article forms part of a collection from the keynote speakers at the 49th IPA Congress in Boston, USA: “Changing World: The shape and use of psychoanalytic tools today”, scheduled for 22–25 July 2015. Registration is available via the IPA website: www.ipa.org.uk/congress.
Notes
1. As per the agreement between the IJP, the IPA and Wiley, copyright for this article is retained by the contributors. This article forms part of a collection from the keynote speakers at the 49th IPA Congress in Boston, USA: “Changing World: The shape and use of psychoanalytic tools today”, scheduled for 22–25 July 2015. Registration is available via the IPA website: www.ipa.org.uk/congress.
2. These new media also offer opportunities for increasing accessibility to mental health care including psychoanalytic interventions. Whilst this requires a sophisticated understanding of how to best create and safeguard the analytic setting, and we have much to learn in this respect, this does not mean that it is not possible to work psychoanalytically through these media (see, for example, Lemma and Fonagy, Citation2014).
3. However, research is illuminating in this respect: there is a correlation between having large numbers of Facebook friends and feeling lonely. Those with low self‐esteem may worsen esteem further as they tend to reveal negative traits as opposed to positive ones, leading to fewer ‘likes’. One in two teenagers admitted lying about personal details on Facebook, so there are implications for identity and meaningful relationships. Envy, narcissism and insecurity abound. Reassurance given in person or by phone causes a decrease in the stress hormone cortisol and an increase in the bonding hormone oxcytocin, yet the same reassurance delivered by instant messaging has no such benefits.
4. In referring to cyberspace I am drawing on Stratton's definition (1997: 29): ‘the space produced by human communication when it is mediated by technology in such a way that the body is absent’.
