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Technology, Relationships and Culture: Clinical and Theoretical Implications

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Abstract

The increasing popularity of the Internet and social media has generated concerns and disputes about their effects on brain, behavior, and relationships. While many positive outcomes are associated with cybercommunication, some individuals experience negative consequences. This, in turn, has roused theoretical and clinical debates about the impact of technology on psychotherapy and the stances therapists should take in their own work with clients. Understanding the emerging digital culture, which includes how the Internet, social media, video games, reality, identity, relationships, and the self are experienced and managed, is thus important if clinicians are to carefully consider and understand the modern relevancy, patterns, and meanings of clients’ communications with and about technology, as well as the possible use of social media as a therapeutic tool. This paper considers those questions by evaluating research on the effects of technology use and the implications of that research for psychotherapeutic practice and theory, with a particular emphasis on how psychoanalytic therapists have approached the topic.

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Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank to Sheldon Rothblatt and Sarah Abel for their suggestions and support for this paper.

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    Karen Zilberstein

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Zilberstein, K. Technology, Relationships and Culture: Clinical and Theoretical Implications. Clin Soc Work J 43, 151–158 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10615-013-0461-2

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