“‘Ninja’ levels of focus”: Therapeutic holding environments and the affective atmospheres of telepsychology during the COVID-19 pandemic

Relational Ethics of Care in Pandemic Research: Vulnerabilities, Intimacies, and Becoming Together-Apart

“…At times, establishing digital intimacy demanded more effort than in-person engagements as the intensity of the gaze and bodily proximity to the camera were emphasized much more than would typically be socially acceptable in face-to-face interactions. Similar to findings from Downing et al (2021) research with therapists, we noticed an increased attention to minute details, and felt the exhaustion that arose while maintaining a more focused presence online.…”

“…Reflecting on her experiences doing housing research during the pandemic, Buckle (2021) described the traumatic and therapeutic effects of conducting interviews on sensitive topics with participants and revealed the challenges she faced in balancing her roles as an early career researcher and mother (e.g., conducting interviews on the roof of her rural residence). Downing et al (2021) research with therapists described the ways that fostering a sense of safety and care online demanded intensive focus and “dynamic interactions between humans, objects and technologies” (p. 7). As feminist materialist scholars, we have considered the human and nonhuman (i.e., objects, environments, technologies, animals) aspects of women’s lives during the pandemic, and in the research process ( Jeffrey et al, 2021 ; Thorpe et al, 2022 ).…”

“…We were practicing “vulnerable listening” ( McClelland, 2017 , p. 338), listening through our bodies and being open to the affective intensities evoked when talking about women’s lives in the pandemic. We also worked toward posthuman listening, attuning to both the human voice and the nonhuman aspects (i.e., space, objects, nonhuman others, such as birds, wind and rain on the window, shadows and light, dogs barking) of the interview encounter ( Downing et al, 2021 ).…”

Bodies on the line: how telepsychology brought about new relationalities between therapists and their clients during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…As findings from this and other research have revealed, the relationalities that occur between therapists and their clients online require a substantial rethink of issues such as privacy, therapeutic efficacy, expressions of empathy and resonance, and psychologists' capacities to appropriately track client responses (Isaacs Russell, 2015;Lemma, 2017;Geller, 2020;Downing et al, 2021). In regard to telepsychology, this article argues that more-than-human theory offers a useful lens through which psychologists and health sociologists can better understand the relationships that emerge between therapists and their clients over digital health technologies.…”

“…As I have argued elsewhere, it was precisely this absence of a defined 'safe' space through which therapists and their clients could engage, that led to an abundance of initial concerns around the viability of online psychology during Australian lockdowns (Downing et al, 2021). This concern goes to the heart of more-than-human theory in as much as it effectively compelled therapists and their clients to enter into a series of new relationalities in which issues of power, matter, space and place were, by necessity, renegotiated.…”