Psychoanalysis Lost—And Found—In Our Culture of Simulation and Enhancement

Abstract

Clinical psychoanalysts routinely face the complex challenge of embracing life in a fast-paced technologically-mediated culture of simulation and enhancement while simultaneously participating as psychoanalysts in that emerging culture. However, many psychoanalytic habits of mind—developed in a vastly different predigital context—unnecessarily constrain a robust exploration of the experiential possibilities created within an emerging techno-culture. Such constraints further marginalize psychoanalysis and deprive the emerging culture of needed psychoanalytic expertise. This article first documents the widening gap between psychoanalysis and the culture in which they practice. It then develops a both–and approach to the relationship between psychoanalysis and the wider culture by recounting the history of the fight between Lawrence Kubie and Walter McCulloch at the dawn of the information age during the Macy Conferences on Cybernetics (1946–1953). Finally, the contemporary clinical resonance of the issues present in that fight are recounted through an extended case example in which a self-destructive woman finds true love, but only with the assistance of technologically mediated communications whose significance her analyst had to struggle both to see and appreciate.

Notes

Portions of this article first appeared in “On the 21st Century Necessity of the Unconscious,” which received the 2005 Morton Schillinger Division 39 Essay Contest Award from Section V of the Division of Psychoanalysis of the APA.

Todd Essig, Ph.D., is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the William Alanson White Institute and Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at New York Medical College. Dr. Essig writes about psychology and technology for Psychology Today and Forbes.com.

¹In 1993, I launched The Psychoanalytic Connection (psychoanalysis.net) to be an online community—an early version of a social network—exclusively for the psychoanalytic community. From those early online conversations across subgroups and generations was launched the first PEP CD-Rom Symposium, which has grown into a yearly event. Soon the Web revolution hit and The Connection morphed into a provider of professional e-communications services for both individuals and organizations. Notably, we provided the technology to the William Alanson White Institute for the first online psychoanalytic continuing education course. We created and produced the Journal of the American Psychoanalytical Association Psa-NETCAST. The Connection presented an online seminar taught by Stephen Mitchell and Lewis Aron instrumental in the founding the International Association for Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy (IARPP), and The Connection continued by producing IARPP's online Web-seminars and online colloquia. The International Association for Psychoanalytic Self Psychology has also used these services for Web-seminars and online reading groups. The Connectoin closed December 31, 2009 after 16 years of continuous operation.

²For many years, I participated in what was called the Mind, Culture, and Technology (MCT) study group. MCT members who have helped me think through many issues over the years include Paul Lippmann, Kenneth Eisold, Barbara Eisold, Judith Rustin, Christine Sekar, Jennifer Nash, Philip Blumberg, and Allison Rosen. My thanks to all of them for helping me understand more about the psychological effects of emerging technologies.

³Using the title of a book by Abelson, Ledeen, and Lewis (2008), three 40-year veterans of the computer industry who teach the Harvard general studies course.

⁴We had negotiated an agreement that she could e-mail me whenever she wanted to do so but that she should not expect a reply, nor she should assume I would have been able to read all her e-mails when we next met. We agreed she would use the phone if she needed to connect with me.

⁵An illustrative example took place at a November 2009 conference organized by the Division of Psychoanalysis of the NY State Psychological Association. I was on a panel discussing 21st-century sexuality. During the discussion Ken Corbett, a fellow panelist (please note that I am sharing this anecdote with Dr. Corbett's permission), dismissed the newness of cybersex in the case I had presented by citing the George Bernard Shaw quote, “The perfect love affair is one which is conducted entirely by post.” For him and all those who murmured agreement, there was to be nothing new.

⁶SKYPE is a Web-based service and program that lets people with cameras and microphones video-conference with each other. Eventually, Ms. W and her husband changed from IMs to SKYPE when at their computers, keeping a window open all the time with an image of the other going about their business.