The Elephant Not in the Room: Will Psychoanalysis Survive the Screen?

2 CE HOURS available for: NY Practitioners – LCSWs, LMSWs, LPs, LMFTs, LMHCs, LCATs, PHDs, PSYDs

Until Covid upended the psychoanalytic frame as we knew it, most of us assumed that the therapeutic process required that analysts’ and patients’ bodies occupy the same physical space. While Covid forced us to abandon these assumptions, we anticipated, even yearned for the day when we could return to in-person work. Today we’re in a gray zone. To mask or not to mask? To remain remote or risk exposure? While these decisions in part are informed by clinical considerations, our personal necessities are likely also implicated. Do we rationalize when we declare remote therapy equivalent (or nearly equivalent) to in-person work? Do we minimize the health risk to ourselves and our patients when we return to an in-person model? In this presentation we invite you to examine the factors—conscious or not—that inform our use (or rejection) of remote work. We also aim to explore the short- and long-term implications of working through a screen for the psychoanalytic field as a whole.

Leora Trub, a clinical psychologist, has written extensively on these issues. She runs the Digital Media and Psychology lab at Pace University where she investigates how technologies affect our conceptions of ourselves and our relationships with others.

Joyce Slochower will act as facilitator and discussant.

Presenter – Leora Trub, PhD

Leora Trub, Ph.D., is Associate Professor at Pace University’s doctoral program in School/Clinical-Child Psychology, and has a private practice in New York City, where she treats adolescents, adults and couples. Her primary research interest is the study of identity development, relationship formation and psychological well-being in the age of technology, and the implications of digital technology on clinical practice. She is the author of numerous papers and chapters on clinical practice in the digital age, and the relationship between technology and psychological constructs including attachment, emotional regulation, intimacy, self-presentation and mindfulness. Her research has been published in a range of research, clinical, and psychoanalytic journals. It has also been reported on in various news outlets, including the New York Times.

Discussant – Joyce Slochower, PhD, ABPP

Joyce Slochower Ph.D., ABPP, is Professor Emerita of Psychology at Hunter College & the Graduate Center, CUNY. Joyce is faculty and supervisor at the NYU Postdoctoral Program, the Steven Mitchell Center, the National Training Program of NIP (all in New York), Philadelphia Center for Relational Studies in Philadelphia and the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California in San Francisco. She is on the Editorial Boards of Psychoanalytic Dialogues, Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, Ricerca Psicoanalitica and Psychoanalytic Perspectives and is on the Board of the IARPP. Joyce has published over 100 articles on various aspects of psychoanalytic theory and technique. Second Editions of her two books, Holding and Psychoanalysis: A Relational Perspective (1996) and Psychoanalytic Collisions (2006), were released in 2014 by Routledge. She is co-Editor, with Lew Aron and Sue Grand, of “De-idealizing relational theory: a Critique from within” and “Decentering Relational Theory: A Comparative Critique (2018, Routledge). Her forthcoming book, Elephants Under the Couch: Psychoanalysis and the Unspoken, is in press with Karnac. She is in private practice in New York City where she sees individuals and couples, runs supervision and study groups.