It is well known that Sigmund Freud routinely used media metaphorically in his theories of the psychic apparatus; this chapter recovers the early history of Freud’s real use of media in therapies over distance. This talk reads epistolary and postal conventions in Freud’s moment, intertwined with Freud’s own epistolary self-analysis (in correspondence with Wilhelm Fliess) and the unconventional treatment by correspondence of his only child patient, the agoraphobic “Little Hans,” in order to rethink the coincidental origins of psychoanalysis and teletherapy.

Hannah Zeavin, PhD, Historian, is a lecturer in the Departments of English and History at UC Berkeley, and a faculty affiliate of the University of California at Berkeley Center for Science, Technology, Medicine, and Society. Her research focuses on the coordinated histories of technology and medicine. Zeavin is the author of The Distance Cure: A History of Teletherapy (MIT Press, August 2021) and at work on her second book, Mother's Little Helpers: Technology in the American Family (MIT Press, 2023). Other work has appeared or is forthcoming in American Imago, differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies, Logic Magazine, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Real Life Magazine, Somatosphere, Slate, and elsewhere. She received her Ph.D. from the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication at NYU in 2018.

Ben Kafka, The Demon of Writing: Powers and Failures of Paperwork (New York: Zone Books, 2012). 

1302 Waugh Dr. #276, Houston, TX 77019

(713) 429-5810

Visit Website | Email Us

This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the accreditation requirements and policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) through the joint providership of American Psychoanalytic Association and the Center for Psychoanalytic Studies, as a co-sponsor of Houston Psychoanalytic Society. The American Psychoanalytic Association is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians. The American Psychoanalytic Association designates this Live Activity for a maximum of 1.5 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.