It could be argued, with some justification, that psychoanalysis as a discipline needed to speed up to keep apace with the changing times in order to remain relevant to contemporary culture. In the current climate, however, it is important to also pause for breath and draw on one of its key tenets: absence, waiting, gaps – all of which march to a slower tempo – may be painful and frustrating, and their toleration should not be fetishised as the path to mental health, but these are essential experiences that push us towards the vital psychic task of representation.
Speed introduces a tension between presentation and representation. On a daily basis we are ‘presented’ with numerous images and sound bytes. The world afar is presented to us via various media that collapse space into time. This constant feeding means that we have on tap unprecedented access to knowledge that can expand the mind. At the same time in order for the mind to develop the emotional resilience required to process experience the mind needs to have space – an absence of presentation – that impels (allows) it to represent experience. This, as I shall suggest in this book, is necessary for the successful integration of mind and body, for sustaining the necessary ‘work of desire’ and for the development of sexuality during adolescence.
Lemma, Alessandra. The Digital Age on the Couch (pp. 5-6). Taylor and Francis. 2017, Kindle edition.
