Abstract

This article is a somewhat adapted presentation with the same title from the conference “Psychotherapy and New Technologies” held at the Clinical Psychiatric Hospital Vrapče in Zagreb on June 1, 2018. Rapid development and extensive use of technological gadgets in new forms of communication present a challenge in redefining and changing the fundamental psychotherapy settings. The author presents his own deliberations and questions based on more than 10 years of experience in clinical practice at experimenting with new forms of online communication. The conclusion is that remote supervisions proceed without difficulties, while online psychoanalytic psychotherapy face-to-face can be maintained more easily in this new form of communication than the classic ‘couch’ psychoanalysis that is nevertheless possible in certain conditions. We should not fall into the trap of comparing the quality of psychoanalytic therapy in the physical presence of an analyst and analysand with that of remote therapy; they are simply different forms of therapy, whereby our experience in the latter is only limited. The technology of the 21st century is irreversibly changing our lives and modes of communication, which is a fact that psychoanalysis cannot ignore should it seek to survive in the “New World.”