A pandemia de COVID-19 e a clínica: é possível sustentar a prática clínica em psicanálise na modalidade online?

Abstract

Amid the Covid-19 pandemic in Brazil, in the early 2022, online treatments gained the spotlight, considering the requirement of physical and social distancing recommended by national and global health authorities, such as the World Health Organization (WHO). In little time, psychoanalysts were forced to adopt this new way of treatment, even though this kind of practice was unusual in this field and had no basis or guidelines in literature to support it. Due to external consequences, psychoanalysts were led to embrace online treatments as the only possible way to keep working. If, during the pandemic, this was the only option, nowadays it is necessary to consider the implications of it in psychoanalytical practice since its massive use – many times in a thoughtless way – is being seen as natural both by psychoanalysts and their patients. Due to how natural it is being perceived, it is decisive to investigate the real viability of this practice, considering that in psychoanalytical clinic there are no guidelines to online treatment, once it´s historically done in physical clinics. Regarding all the above, this work aims to investigate the possibility of sustaining the clinical practice, as it was granted by Sigmund Freud, in an online environment. Therefore, it was attained a bibliographical review on specific scientific works on clinical experiences during the pandemic, and published between 2020 and 2022, in Brazil. The main goal is to present and problematize the many changes amid this method. It was also attained a bibliographic review of some of Freud´s works regarding psychoanalytical techniques from 1912, and other papers regarding clinical practice. It became central to problematize the discussion both in articles on online treatment and the Freudian guidelines on the analytical method. The finding reveals that there are some obstacles to sustaining the psychoanalytical practice, as it was established by Freud, and the online clinic. The adaptations made by psychoanalysts during the pandemic were not enough to suppress those obstacles, which lead us to the conclusion that analytical treatment should be done in a present clinic.