Psychodynamics

Coding the Privileged Self: Facebook and the Ethics of Psychoanalysis “Outside the Clinic”

“…Both approaches avoid reductive causal explanations. Social shaping theory argues that technologies are “neither good nor bad, nor neutral” (Balick 2014, 25). Instead, they are “thoroughly cultural forms” that reflect the “ideological conflicts of the societies that produce them” (Gates 2011, 4).…”

“…Given the history of psychoanalysis’ “collusion with oppressive regimes” (Frosh 2010, 157), psychoanalytic concepts are always at risk of becoming “part of the state apparatus” (Frosh 2010, 191). Critical scholarship must examine how such systems impinge on subject formation through what Butler (2005, vii) calls “the economy of the psyche.” Commercial media amplify these concerns insofar as they perform nontherapeutic forms of psychoanalysis “outside the clinic.” Online platforms, for example, provide little defense for the user-as-patient against the various “enactments” that therapists are trained to handle in the clinic (Balick 2014, 47).…”

“…Balick’s (2014) process-oriented form of applied psychoanalysis begins to bridge the gap between critical psychoanalysis and media studies. On the premise that individuals’ primary motivation is the need for recognition, he focuses on how, why, and with what impact users engage social media (Balick 2014, xxxiii–xxxiv). He posits the mind as a transactional and increasingly mediated process that emerges through the dynamics of intersubjective space.…”

YouTubers, online selves and the performance principle: Notes from a post-Jungian perspective

“…Notable exceptions to this include edited collections (e.g. Weitz, 2014), a special issue of The Spring Jour-Principle: Notes from a Post-Jungian Perspective Greg Singh CM : Communication and Media XI(38) 167-194 © 2016 CDI nal on the theme of technology, cyberspace and psyche (Winter, 2008), and book-length studies (Balick, 2014b;and Singh (forthcoming).…”

“…For Aaron Balick (2014b), the Jungian persona and the relational false self are expressions of ego functions, because "they both lie between internal experience (intrapsychic) and the outside world (intersubjective); hence, they can both be conceived Principle: Notes from a Post-Jungian Perspective Greg Singh CM : Communication and Media XI(38) 167-194 © 2016 CDI as 'relational' because they develop for the purpose of managing the space between self and other" (2014b: 16).…”