CHAPTER TITLE I THE PSYCHODYNAMICS OF SOCIAL NETWORKING PSYCHOANALYSIS AND POPULAR CULTURE SERIES Series Editors: Caroline Bainbridge and Candida Yates Consulting Editor: Brett Kahr Other titles in the Psychoanalysis and Popular Culture Series: Television and Psychoanalysis: Psycho-Cultural Perspectives edited by Caroline Bainbridge, Ivan Ward, and Candida Yates The Inner World of Doctor Who: Psychoanalytic Reflections in Time and Space by Iain MacRury and Michael Rustin THE PSYCHODYNAMICS OF SOCIAL NETWORKING Connected-up Instantaneous Culture and the Self Aaron Balick First published in 2014 by Karnac Books Ltd 118 Finchley Road, London NW3 5HT Cover design © Richard Kahwagi. Copyright © 2014 to Aaron Balick. The right of Aaron Balick to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with §§ 77 and 78 of the Copyright Design and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A C.I.P. for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 1 78049 092 2 Edited, designed and produced by The Studio Publishing Services Ltd www.publishingservicesuk.co.uk e-mail: [email protected] Printed in Great Britain www.karnacbooks.com CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vii ABOUT THE AUTHOR xi SERIES EDITORS’ PREFACE xiii INTRODUCTION: Putting it into context xv CHAPTER ONE Psychodynamics 1 CHAPTER TWO On searching and being sought 27 CHAPTER THREE The matrix 49 CHAPTER FOUR Who’s afraid of being an object? 71 v vi CONTENTS CHAPTER FIVE Being in the mind of the other 101 CHAPTER SIX Identities are not virtual 129 Conclusion 149 NOTES 159 REFERENCES 165 INDEX 179 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Seeing this book from conception to completion has been a long process that has involved a great number of people. First and fore- most, I would like to thank those directly involved in its coming into being. Brett Kahr, who first proposed the idea, and Caroline Bainbridge and Candida Yates, the series editors, who have given me the honour not only of being included in this exciting series, but also many other aspects of their prolific endeavours in psycho- analysis and culture. Those at Karnac Books who have so beneficently guided me through this process; Constance Govindin, Rod Tweedy, and Kate Pearce, who so helpfully and rapidly responded to my myriad e-mails, and Oliver Rathbone for taking this book on. I would also like to thank the journal Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society who first published my clinical paper “TMI in the transference LOL: Psychoanalytic reflections on Google, social networking, and ‘virtual impingement’ ”, which served as the basis for Chapter Two of this book. I am also eternally grateful to Alain Bartolo, a true and trea- sured friend, who was a constant source of encouragement and help- ful criticism, and the first reader of so much of this book. Alain, merci. Further, this book would never have been possible were it not for my own client “Thomas”, who was not only instrumental in helping me vii viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS think through the implications of our own “virtual impingement” and all that followed, but generously gave consent for me to use his mate- rial in this book. In writing a book there is a series of individuals who take on less formal roles that I would also like to thank. Foremost, I would like to thank two of my mentors, who have both “parented” me in deeply important ways in my development as a psychotherapist and writer, Andrew Samuels and Susie Orbach, both of whom have been pioneers in the application of the depth psychologies to society and culture. The executive board and members of the Relational School have all been there from the start, providing a fertile proving ground for this material, testing it, challenging it, and adding spice and content. I am grateful to the entire membership for their contribution and particu- larly the executive board; Shoshi Asheri, Sally Berry, Robert Downes, Jane Haberlin, Sue Jenssen, Pam Kleinot, Marsha Nodelman, Jane Nairne, and Judy Yellin. Also highly influential to me are my friends and colleagues at the Centre for Psychoanalytic Studies at the Univer- sity of Essex, particularly Matt ffytche and Kevin Lu, alongside all the wonderful students who passed through our classes. I am also grate- ful to Ford Hickson for his help in my understanding of statistical and quantitative studies. No book can be written without the love and support of those around you. On this point, the biggest acknowledgement goes out to my civil and life partner, Will Nutland, who, as part of his very being, effortlessly assuages my doubts, consistently settles my insecurities, and grounds me in the solid foundations of his love and affection. To Richard Kahwagi, not just for creating the beautiful cover, but also for his wonderfully accessible warmth, effervescent curiosity, humour, and relentless support. And to Juan Sanchez, whose quiet and patient belief in me has been profoundly sustaining. I am deeply lucky to have a large family of origin and family of choice: too many to name. However, I would especially like to thank my mother, Leslie Balick Picker, and father, Stanley Balick, to whom I owe so much; my dear sister, Kheyala Rasa, and her two wonderful children, Ananda and Zack, who came back into my life during the writing of this book; and my stepfather, Lester Picker, who has been a great support. To my extended family, you know who you are, and to my family of choice all over the globe, I am most deeply grateful. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ix Permissions and copyrights Epigraphs Introduction: Kranzberg, Melvin. Technology and history: ‘Kranzberg’s Laws’. Technology and Culture, 27(3) (1986): 545. © 1986 by the Society for the History of Technology. Reprinted with permission of the Johns Hopkins University Press. Chapter Two: Reprinted from Hope and Dread in Psychoanalysis, by Stephen A. Mitchell. Available from Basic Books, an imprint of Perseus Books Group. Copyright © 1983. Chapter Three: McLuhan, Marshall (1964). Understanding Media. New York: Routledge (2001), p. 52. Chapter Four: “Birdhouse in Your Soul”, by John Linnell and John Flansburgh, Copyright © 1991 TMBG Music. All rights administered by Warner- Tamerlane Publishing Corp. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Chapter Five: Bollas, Christopher (1987). Shadow of the Object. Pages 48–49. © Christopher Bollas 1987. First published by Free Association Books, London, UK. Throughout Copyright © 2011 Sherry Turkle. Reprinted by permission of Basic Books, a member of Perseus Books Group. To HB and TT In memory of SWB ABOUT THE AUTHOR Aaron Balick is a UKCP registered psychotherapist and supervisor, and a media and social networking consultant working in London. He is also an honorary lecturer at the Centre for Psychoanalytic Studies at the University of Essex, where he participates in the postgraduate MA and PhD programmes in psychoanalytic studies; in addition, he lectures and runs workshops in a variety of psychotherapy trainings in the UK. As a founding and executive member of the Relational School UK, he works to develop and promote relational thinking in the UK and abroad. Dr Balick writes for both academic and lay audiences, having published several academic articles and book chapters, while at the same time contributing a psychological angle in the national press and on national radio; he has also written a self-help book for children. He is a media spokesperson for the UKCP and a regular contributor, as the “resident psychotherapist”, to BBC Radio 1’s phone-in show, The Surgery with Aled and Dr Radha. xi SERIES EDITORS’ PREFACE The application of psychoanalytic ideas and theories to culture has a long tradition and this is especially the case with cultural artefacts that might be considered “classical” in some way. For Sigmund Freud, the works of William Shakespeare and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe were as instrumental as those of culturally renowned poets and philosophers of classical civilisation in helping to formulate the key ideas underpinning psychoanalysis as a psychological method. In the academic fields of the humanities and social sciences, the application of psychoanalysis as a means of illuminating the complexities of iden- tity and subjectivity is now well established. However, despite these developments, there is relatively little work that attempts to grapple with popular culture in its manifold forms, some of which, neverthe- less, reveal important insights into the vicissitudes of the human condition. The “Psychoanalysis and Popular Culture” book series builds on the work done since 2009 by the Media and the Inner World research network, which was generously funded by the UK’s Arts and Human- ities Research Council. It aims to offer spaces to consider the relation- ship between psychoanalysis in all its forms and popular culture, which is ever more emotionalised in the contemporary age. xiii xiv SERIES EDITORS’ PREFACE In contrast to many scholarly applications of psychoanalysis, which often focus solely on “textual analysis”, this series sets out to explore the creative tension of thinking about cultural experience and its processes, with attention to observations from the clinical and scholarly fields of observation. What can academic studies drawing on psychoanalysis learn from the clinical perspective and how might the critical insights afforded by scholarly work cast new light on clin- ical experience? The series provides space for a dialogue between these different groups with a view to creating fresh perspectives on the values and pitfalls of a psychoanalytic approach to ideas of self- hood, society, and popular culture. In particular, the series strives to develop a psycho-cultural approach to such questions by drawing attention to the usefulness of a post-Freudian, object-relations perspective for examining the importance of emotional relationships and experience.