ABSTRACT

This paper explores the use of a smartphone within a therapy. It describes its use as a screen object in the service of survival-oriented infantile omnipotence, towards its use as a bridge that facilitated the structuring of internal space and the emergence of nascent capacities for relatedness and introspection. Clinical material from a ten year-long therapy with an adopted girl illustrates the presence of the smartphone on three layers of the therapeutic relationship. First, on a sensory level, the smartphone was used as an almost autistic screening object, but also as an auditory-visual envelope where therapist and patient could be immersed together. Second, on the level of patient-therapist communication and transference relations, the use of the smartphone revived infantile trauma involving the internalisation of a parental gaze that established a distorted internal and external gaze experience, which I termed ‘psychic cross-eyes’. Third, the smartphone served as a ‘third’ object that helped establish our shared observation of reality, and of the patient’s own psyche. By dwelling together, and developing a private language of ‘being-with’ ‘inside’ the phone, while gradually interpreting primitive anxieties and defences in terms of withdrawal from relatedness, we were able to add greater flexibility to the patient’s notion of relatedness, establish her binocular vision, and promote the development of the inner witness function. The paper thus explores the smartphone’s transition from a sterile, screening object, to a communicative, ‘object-seeking’ presence.

摘要

本文探讨了智能手机在治疗中的使用。它描述了它作为屏幕对象的用途，为以生存为导向的婴儿全能服务，将其用作促进内部空间结构和相关性和内省新生能力出现的桥梁。对一个被收养的女孩进行了长达十年的治疗的临床材料说明了智能手机在三层治疗关系中的存在。首先，在感官层面上，智能手机几乎被用作自闭症筛查对象，但也被用作治疗师和患者可以沉浸在一起的视听信封。第二，在医患沟通和移情关系层面，智能手机的使用恢复了婴儿期的创伤，包括父母凝视的内在化，这种凝视建立了一种扭曲的内部和外部凝视体验，我称之为“心理交叉眼”。第三，智能手机充当了“第三”对象，帮助我们建立了对现实和患者自身心理的共同观察。通过住在一起，在电话中发展一种“与”“在一起”的私人语言，同时逐渐解释原始的焦虑和防御，以退出相关性，我们能够为患者的相关性概念增加更大的灵活性，建立她的双眼视觉，促进内在见证功能的发展。因此，本文探讨了智能手机从无菌、筛选对象到交流的“寻找对象”存在的转变。