Remote or Close? Notes on Working Psychoanalytically by Videoconference

In a time of forced physical distancing due to the Covid-19 virus, psychotherapy has moved online, disrupting what some feel is essential to the process. For the individual therapy couple the author describes in this article, the teletherapy platform provided a frame in which deeper, earlier feelings came to light, not only in the new, initially unwanted therapy space, but between the patient and his wife outside it. One session, especially, made it apparent that one person's need for affect-attunement conflicted with the other's need for recognition of difference or separateness—arousing feelings of mutual betrayal of basic trust and rage between husband and wife. These were witnessed by the therapist who was able to work with what was taking place as an enactment of old trauma, unconsciously contributed to, but eventually reparative for both parties. Several sessions are presented before and after that pivotal one in which technical problems were collaboratively overcome by the therapeutic couple, providing useful metaphors for familiar, but previously insurmountable obstacles between the marital couple, as well as freeing up verbal and non-verbal affective expression and reflection in the virtual, but increasingly intimate consulting room.