As Covid-19 forced psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and many other healthcare practitioners to use online platforms, internet connectivity took on new meaning While bothersome for both patient and therapist, technology glitches can offer an opportunity to see unconscious relationship dynamics come through in sessions, in a way they might not in the consulting room While the therapist usually controls the frame through how they arrange their office, internet glitches can come from either the therapist’s or the patient’s side These glitches can be thought of as either purely technological or as an unconscious enactment, more like a parapraxis Both kinds of glitches can offer the opportunity to uncover meaning in the relationship Exploration might help elucidate either the patient’s reaction to the technological glitch or the unconscious meaning behind a parapraxis glitch Like a ‘Freudian slip’ of the tongue in a typical session, a Freudian glitch can be fertile ground for further examination and connection with patients © 2021 Association of Child Psychotherapists
Freudian glitch: mind the technology gap