Psychoanalysis Online: Mental Health, Teletherapy and Training, edited by Jill Savege Scharff, MD, is an international collaboration by psychotherapists and psychoanalysts who consider the impact of virtual reality on our society and the uses of communications technology for analytic treatment and professional training. Having examined the impact of communications technology on mental health and relationships, the authors explore its use in analytical treatment conducted on the telephone and over the internet, and review its problems and possibilities. They provide a multi-faceted view of it, an ethical stance in relation to it, and evidence from which to judge its effectiveness. Looking into the future they imagine a time when technology-supported analytic treatment may be not only convenient as a supplement to in-person treatment but also preferable for some patients and therapists in various circumstances. Psychoanalysis Online: Mental Health, Teletherapy and Training invigorates the debate about technology and its responsible use in psychotherapy and psychoanalysis and in distance learning programs for mental health professionals.

Table of Contents:
"Introduction -- Technology, Person, and Society -- The influence of social media and communications technology on self and relationships -- Skype as the uncanny third -- The computer as metaphor for state of mind -- Internet pornography as a source of marital distress -- Musings on therapy and technology -- Telephone and Internet in Treatment -- Clinical issues in analysis over the telephone and the internet -- Legal, clinical, and ethical issues in teletherapy -- Ethical aspects of teletherapy -- Impact of a single Skype session on an in-person analysis -- Transition from in-person psychotherapy to telephone psychoanalysis -- Setting and transference-countertransference reconsidered on beginning teleanalysis -- Case material from a telephone analysis -- The screen as catalyst for psychic transformation -- Clinical and technical perspectives on telephone analysis -- Implications for Training of Psychotherapists and Psychoanalysts -- The power of the establishment in the face of change: psychoanalysis by telephone -- The frame for psychoanalysis in cyberspace -- Psychoanalysis using Skype -- Four women analysts reflect on their teleanalyses when candidates -- A male analyst reflects on his teleanalysis when a candidate -- Technology-assisted supervision and consultation -- Teletherapy and teleanalysis in training psychotherapists and psychoanalysts -- Telemental health resources"