The empty couch: Love and mourning in times of confinement

The Musical Semiotics of Voice in Distance: Some Reflections on the Question of Teleanalysis

Within the context of the debate over teleanalysis, I wish to reintroduce the discussion of voice as the primary link between analyst and patient, a link present in analysis on the phone. Far from questioning the importance of the in-person analysis, I aim to emphasize the voice, the musical semiotics of emotions, as a critical, if not the most vital, aspect of psychoanalysis as a "talking cure" and an art of listening. Insofar as the speaking is instituted in the body, the body is present through voice, even in the virtual analytic room in teleanalysis. I argue that the need for the presence of the material bodies in the session is one aspect of the analytic rituals that, along with the room, the couch, and other power objects, set the stage for the continuous projection of the role identities of the analytic couple. In teleanalysis, the seductive nature of the analytic situation and the status differential are more salient in the analyst's office turf than in the patient's room.

Isolation, Loneliness and Aloneness in the Age of Covid-19: Reflections on Clinical Experiences

The Covid-19 pandemic brought a heightened fear of death and illness, and increased experiences of isolation, loneliness and aloneness. In this article we describe clinical experiences of psychotherapists in Argentina, the UK and Germany in order to explore how the impacts of the pandemic are variously felt and mediated by inner resources. We explore the capacity to relate internally to good experiences of infancy and a secure internal world, and the risks of loneliness, and interpersonal and intrapsychic withdrawal, that lead to vulnerability in patients and therapists. We contrast instances where psychotherapy in response to increased fears of death, infection and isolation is facilitative of change and growth, with situations where perverse, destructive or defensive relating predominate. We ask if we are witnessing and, through our therapeutic activities, contributing to the emergence of new ways of understanding the internal conflicts of this Covid-19 age, and tentatively identify some key emerging themes; the capacity for facilitative interactions and change; identifications with the powerful virus; an increase in paranoid anxieties and the potential for a more considerate, 'care-full' way of relating.

Zwei Jahre COVID-19-Pandemie. Das Unheimliche, Abwehr und der Einbruch des analytischen Rahmens

Die Autorin sichtet nach zwei Jahren Pandemie einige Ergebnisse der psychoanalytischen Literatur, in der die Bedrohung durch COVID-19 untersucht und die Herausforderungen für das analytische Paar diskutiert werden. Im ersten Teil geht es um das Unheimliche, was einige Autoren dem COVID-19-Virus zuschreiben, zentriert auf die Frage, ob dem Virus das innewohnt, was nach Freuds dialektischem Verständnis des Unheimlichen etwas Heimisches, Altvertrautes ist. Im zweiten Teil diskutiert die Autorin einige individuelle und kollektive Abwehrbewegungen gegen das Unheimliche des Virus, einschließlich gesellschaftspolitisch höchst bizarrer und gefährlicher Gruppierungen wie die QAnon-Bewegung. Hauptschwerpunkt dieser Arbeit ist die im dritten Teil diskutierte kritische Frage, ob die analytische Arbeit angesichts radikaler Veränderungen des analytischen Rahmens (Telefon/Video), ohne leibliche Begegnung des analytischen Paars, (überhaupt) gelingen kann. Anhand einer Vignette untersucht die Autorin die behandlungstechnische Herausforderung, die Übertragungsbewegungen durch den veränderten Rahmen mitzubedenken und zu deuten und verweist auf die Gefahr, den „inneren Rahmen“ (Bleger 1993) zu verlieren.

Reflections on the role of the analytic setting in the light of COVID-19

There have been many reflections, both individual and collective within our Institutes, on the effects on our work with patients caused by COVID-19 and the requirement to move suddenly from the setting of our own consulting rooms to working with patients online (see also, the previous issue of this Journal). This paper focuses on what we have learned from these experiences that can add to our knowledge about the role of the setting in analytic work. Drawing on Bleger's (1967) seminal paper highlighting the usual setting as a mute projection carrier for primitive wishes and affects, the paper explores how different patients have reacted to the loss of the analyst as the guardian of the setting and in particular as an embodied presence. Some key questions and challenges for both patients and analysts during the pandemic, when 'the setting begins to weep', are explored.