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This paper documents one aspect of an adolescent boy's psychotherapy, as a basis for discussion of the theoretical issues for introducing cyberspace communication into psychodynamic therapy. The patient's “blogging” serves as a platform for consideration of several seemingly contradictory functions. It is an avenue for the patient to reveal himself while
Etziona Israeli is a Lecturer and Supervisor in the Postgraduate Program of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy and former Chair of the Child-Adolescents track in the University of Haifa, Israel. She is a Clinical Psychologist at the outpatient clinic in Tel Aviv for adolescents in boarding schools, and is in private practice.
Zehorit Asulin-Simhon is a Clinical Psychologist in private practice. She is also a doctoral student in “Psychoanalysis and Discourse” at Bar-llan University, Rammat-Gan, Israel.
Ruth Sharabany is Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Haifa, Israel, as well as former Chair of the Postgraduate Program of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy and former Associate Editor of the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.
The authors would like to acknowledge the important contribution of the reviewers to this paper.
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the conference of the International Association for Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy, Madrid, Spain, June-July 2011.
The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child 67, ed. Claudia Lament, Robert A. King, Samuel Abrams, A. Scott Dowling, and Paul M. Brinich (Yale University Press, copyright © 2013 by Claudia Lament, Robert A King, Samuel Abrams, A. Scott Dowling, and Paul M. Brinich).
maintaining comfortable control and also avoiding direct contact with the therapist and diluting communication. The blog writing allows for the regulation of emotions to some degree as well as an experience of solitude with an imagined audience. This therapy is in the context of the adolescent roller coaster—loss, anger, distancing while yearning for intimacy, and acting out. Changes in the therapy are mirrored by vicissitudes in the function and content of the blog. Cyberspace communication is a hallmark of the present generation. The implications of introducing it into adolescent therapy as well as refraining from it need to be considered. We attempt here to examine the role of this new space with regard to the patient, the therapist, the therapeutic relationship, and the course of therapy.