The Distance Cure

One of New Statesman’s Books of the Year.Winner of the 2022 Courage to Dream Book Prize from the Academy of the American Psychoanalytic Association. “Hannah Zeavin’s remarkable The Distance Cure: A History of Teletherapy (MIT Press) disinters the history of long-distance psychoanalysis. From Freud’s “self-analysis” in correspondence with physician Wilhelm Fliess, to the mass communication of psychoanalysis through radio, to suicide hotlines and the use of video-calling to treat patients during the pandemic. Psychoanalysis has rarely reflected on this history because from its foundations, when Freud was fascinated with telepathy, it was gripped by a fantasy of medium-less communication. But, Zeavin shows, the analytic relationship always needs mediation: ritual, appointments, money, all create the “distanced intimacy” across which the undercurrents of fantasy and transference flow. And what is true of the analytic relationship is also true, differently, of all relationships.”—New Statesman “An enticingly written and thoroughly researched monograph by Hannah Zeavin—a lecturer in the Departments of English and History at the University of California, Berkeley—is the first ever academic foray into the history of modern teletherapy.“—E&T Magazine “In the last year and a half, plenty of people have experienced the world of virtual therapy. But teletherapy has a long history that predates Zoom being ubiquitous, and Hannah Zeavin’s new book The Distance Cure offers a comprehensive look at that history. Technology and mental health have a long shared history, and this helps put that into perspective.“—Inside Hook “Well-researched and enormously confident with the materials at hand”—The Point “Hannah Zeavin’s remarkable The Distance Cure: A History of Teletherapy disinters the history of long-distance psychoanalysis.“—Richard Seymour “Zeavin’s book begins with Freud and then moves on to survey different forms of therapy conducted from a distance: letter-writing, radio call-in shows, advice columns, therapist-simulating computer programs, and “concierge” smartphone apps that connect people with therapists, for a price.” — Bookforum

Hannah Zeavin is a Lecturer in the Departments of English and History at the University of California, Berkeley, and is affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley, Center for Science, Technology, Medicine, and Society. She is a Visiting Fellow at Columbia University’s Center for Social Difference and Editorial Associate at The Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in American Imago, differences- A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Real Life Magazine, Slate, and elsewhere.

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