Psychoanalytic Education and Teleanalysis: The Role of the Frame in the Formation of Psychoanalytic Identity

In this manuscript, I describe my experience of the evolving place of teleanalysis in psychoanalytic practice and education, focusing on the central role of the analyst’s internal frame in sustaining analytic work across settings. Drawing on clinical, supervisory, teaching, and personal analytic experience, I argue that the usefulness of psychoanalysis depends less on the external setting than on the analyst’s capacity to function analytically in the face of absence, uncertainty, and loss. I suggest that a priori views of teleanalysis as “less real” or “less effective” often reflect defensive efforts to avoid these anxieties, foreclosing analytic inquiry. Rather than treating differences between in-office and teleanalytic work as indicators of equivalence or inferiority, I propose that we view each setting as mobilising distinct transference–countertransference configurations that require symbolic elaboration. I consider the educational implications of these observations, arguing that teleanalytic treatment and supervision during training can provide a vital context for engaging, testing, and strengthening candidates’ internal analytic frame and psychoanalytic identity. I contend that given the worldwide and widespread adoption of the teleanalytic frame, teaching candidates how to practise analysis while working teleanalytically during their training has become an existential issue for psychoanalysis.