Friend Request: The Analytic Frame Revisited

Abstract

In this article, the author presents a case in which she chose to accept a patient's Facebook “friend request.” She describes an early “model scene” (Lichtenberg, 1989) that shaped the patient's sense of self and his relationships, and how a similar interpersonal dynamic was recreated in the analytic dyad. As the treatment progressed, the analyst found it necessary to revisit and reconceptualize the idea of the traditional psychoanalytic frame to better meet her patient's developmental, selfobject, and relational needs. The author elaborates on how the frame changed (and why), how the expansion of the frame deepened the analyst–patient bond, and the ways in which the use of social media opened new therapeutic opportunities and relational possibilities in this treatment. The author discusses how this case illustrates Bacal's (1998, 2011; Bacal & Herzog, 2003) theories of “optimal responsiveness” and “specificity,” and addresses related topics that include the implicit mode of relatedness, nonverbal communication, and analyst self-disclosure and self-consciousness.