r Stephen Blumenthal normally takes a moment to gather his thoughts before inviting patients onto the blue leather couch in his consulting room in central London. Each consultation begins in the same way as it would have done a century ago when Sigmund Freud developed psychoanalysis. Patients are asked to say whatever comes into their heads.
Teletherapy makes that impossible. The analyst has no control over the patient’s environment on a video call, and can’t stop them being interrupted. Some patients have been retreating to their cars to guarantee them peace and quiet, says Blumenthal. Analysts too may have to allow patients a window into their own domestic lives. “At first it felt like an intrusion,” says Blumenthal. “My view now is that if you reveal nothing, the patient senses defensiveness and it can inhibit them.
There can also be unexpected advantages to the new medium, says Blumenthal. On the day that we spoke, he told me that he’d been forced to interrupt a teletherapy session on Zoom earlier that day in order to answer the persistent ringing of his doorbell. He left his microphone on while speaking to the courier, who had a package for his son.
Freud was not averse to innovation. He famously invited a patient he nicknamed the “Rat Man”, because of his obsessive thoughts about rats, to dine in his consulting room. But most of Freud’s devotees have treated his strictures as gospel and followed them like a religion. Some dared stray from the path: Sandor Ferenczi, a close contemporary of Freud, practised “self-disclosure” ; Jacques Lacan ended sessions at moments of emotional significance rather than after the usual 50 minutes.
1843mag This extends beyond therapy. Nothing can ever replace the in-person experience, but circumstances are such that most are left with no options.
1843mag Forget psychoanalysis, said former psychoanalyst and later a prolific author, Alice Miller. But Harville Hendrix's NYTimes bestseller Getting The Love You Want showed the massive public need for psychotherapy, couples counseling, etc. Personal psychological growth is possible.
1843mag They’re banking on it.
1843mag I have experience on both. I must say, seeing the therapist has worked better on me.
1843mag BIDEN NEEDS THIS.
1843mag Where does the privacy issue come into this? I mean, people would be spilling their guts to their therapist and it would not be in strict confidentiality because it would all run through some servers.
1843mag Nah
1843mag Yes. Since there is no worthwhile evidence of benefit either way.
1843mag Nope
1843mag Not possible... Is there anything like visual couch? Hell no!
1843mag No it can not. Thank you.
1843mag Is it fuckin' cheaper
1843mag I only came here for the anticipated witty comments.
1843mag Good therapy does not require two people be in the same room. It helps, but it is not the essential requirement we once believed it was.
1843mag Wouldn't want to slip on it.
1843mag Why would any modern human care what Freud would think?
1843mag He would think it is a penis.
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