Psychotherapy with no body in the room

ABSTRACT

This paper, partly written in the first person, describes the struggle and also the gains made by both an adolescent patient and her therapist when they had to move to a digital platform for their therapy sessions. The particular focus is on the shift in the countertransference and what became possible for both in their responses, when forced to move to digital work.

KEYWORDS:

• Digital work
• physical distance
• online countertransference
• no body
• self-harm
• gender identity
• Covid-19
• lockdown
• India

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. www.thefamilytree.in

2. Sessions are video recorded for supervision with certain high-risk clients, with written informed consent.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nupur Dhingra Paiva

Nupur Dhingra Paiva is Chartered Clinical Psychologist and Lead Child & Adolescent Psychotherapist at Family Tree. She worked in a community CAMHS team with the Tavistock & Portman NHS Trust from 2007 to 2012. She founded Family Tree in 2018.