Property, Materiality, Proximity: The Analytic Frame and In-Person Work

Area of Science:

• Psychoanalysis
• Psychology
• Sociology

Background:

• The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted traditional in-person psychoanalytic sessions.
• Remote work modalities lack the material-signifiers present in face-to-face interactions.
• Bleger's theories emphasize the importance of materiality, location, and bodily proximity in psychoanalysis.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore the significance of material-signifiers in in-person psychoanalytic work.
• To analyze the impact of the pandemic on the analyst-patient dynamic.
• To address patient hesitancy in returning to in-person sessions.

Main Methods:

• Clinical case examples illustrating materiality and in-person dynamics.
• Extension of Bleger's concepts to contemporary psychoanalytic practice.
• Discussion of phenomena like "ghosting" and "constitutive absence" in the context of returning to in-person work.

Main Results:

• In-person interactions provide unique, non-substitutable psychological material.
• The pandemic introduced new dynamics, making "nonprocess" a potential "process."
• Patient reluctance to return to in-person sessions is linked to "constitutive absence" and the irreducible nature of embodied presence.

Conclusions:

• Materiality and physical presence are crucial, irreplaceable elements in psychoanalysis.
• The return to in-person work evokes fundamental aspects of human interaction and presence.
• Understanding "ghosting" and "constitutive absence" is key to navigating the transition back to in-person psychoanalytic practice.