ABSTRACT

Computerized therapy, which can offer various kinds of therapy to masses of people, emerged within the larger cultural context of the erosion of the boundaries between the real and the virtual, the animate and the inanimate. People are seeking out the computer as an intimate machine. While the aim of psychoanalysis is to restructure the personality, the target of computerized therapy is to make its clients feel better, with the ultimate goal of increasing consumption of the specific device which performs therapy. Psychoanalysis is a unique personal experience, and the relationship that the analyst creates with each patient is different. Computerized therapy belongs to digital technology, which the journalist Jonathan Frazen has described as “capitalism in hyper-drive, injecting its logic of monetization and efficiency into every waking minute.” Computerized therapy, with its omnipotent promise of always being available to its clients, denies time limits.