International Forum of Psychoanalysis

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Attempting a metapsychology for tele-copresence

Lucio Alberto Gutiérrez Herane

To cite this article: Lucio Alberto Gutiérrez Herane (2023): Attempting a

1
metapsychology for tele-copresence , International Forum of Psychoanalysis, DOI:
10.1080/0803706X.2023.2210794

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/0803706X.2023.2210794

Published online: 26 Jun 2023.

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International Forum of Psychoanalysis, 2023
https://doi.org/10.1080/0803706X.2023.2210794

Attempting a metapsychology for tele-copresence1

LUCIO ALBERTO GUTIÉRREZ HERANE

Abstract
The concepts of immersion and digital presence have been widely used in the human–computer interaction and virtual
environment research fields and have been particularly valuable when it comes to a better understanding of tele-therapy,
tele-analysis, and other forms of tele-linking. Using a metapsychological perspective, we will attempt a psychoanalytic
interpretation of these phenomena. We will conceptualize them as hypnoid states that reflect a compromise between
internal and external conditions, including specific defensive mechanisms and psychic dynamics. This conceptualization
will be applied to the tele-analytic situation and other relevant fields of application.

Key words: tele-copresence, tele-linking, presence, immersion, virtual-digital.

It is usually growth that is the result of adapting well
to crises. One of the effects of the COVID-19 pan-
demic was the need to alter how people develop in
different fields of human activity. Work, education,
and personal and social lives were all impacted in
ways that people had never experienced before.
This is a vast subject on which I think sociologists
and anthropologists have more to say than psycho-
analysts (e.g., Bauman, 2003, 2005; Han, 2014;
Johnson, 1997; Turkle, 1995, 2011), and we will
not attempt such an ambitious undertaking here.
To keep things as simple as possible, we will talk
about a single issue that has to do with the virtual
mediation of the analytic encounter. Determining
whether to continue working in the field of psycho-
analysis, engage in other forms of therapeutic work,
or discontinue altogether was the most widespread
issue our practice encountered in the wake of the
COVID-19 crisis. Most continued working –
whether for clinical or extraclinical, altruistic or
self-serving motives. The massive adoption of
mediated psychoanalytic work led to a de facto vali-
dation of the telematic setting. Whether we would
consider it full-fledged tele-psychoanalysis, remote
psychoanalytic psychotherapy, or another more
“diluted” form of psychoanalytic work would,
however, be a discussion that would henceforth
remain amid the widespread shift. This is something
that I found to be extremely interesting. What was
once a discussion strongly based on theoretical preju-
dices was now incorporated into an ongoing
experience.
The debate on distance and mediation in psycho-
analysis is not new. It involves matters related to
technical modifications, setting transformations of
and changes to the meeting and the working con-
ditions. It seems, in a certain way, a continuation
of the old debate about telephone analysis. And
before that, the discussions about analyses by
letter, intermittent and shuttle analyses, and con-
centrated analyses. It can be also included as part
of the curious list of technical and technological
modifications throughout the history of psychoana-
lysis, including the use of the couch, the answering
machine, the waiting room, and instant messaging,
among others.
The issue has still not yet been resolved, which is
something we have all probably run into in our psy-
choanalytic groups and institutions. In the broadest
terms, some analysts consider that tele-linking irre-
mediably alters the most basic conditions for psycho-
analytic work. Others believe it poses important but

1
An adapted and extended version of the paper read at the XXIIth IFPS Forum, Central Panel, Friday October 21, 2022, Centro Psicoanalítico de Madrid,
Madrid, Spain.
Correspondence: Lucio Alberto Gutiérrez Herane, Sociedad Chilena de Psicoanálisis ICHPA, Alonso de Córdova 5870 of 1204, Las Condes, RM, Santiago,
Chile. +56984187920 . E-mail: lgutierrez@ichpa.cl

(Received 7 February 2023; accepted 24 April 2023)

© 2023 The International Federation of Psychoanalytic Societies
2 L. A. Gutiérrez Herane
sometimes surmountable problems. There are those
who think it poses no problem at all as a matter of
preferences or adaptations, while others consider
how it affects individual patients, the dyad, and/or
even the moment of treatment. Theoretical affiliation
may have a lot to do with the acceptability of the tele-
analytic device, but there are also variables such as
the analyst’s experience, the perceived severity of
the patient’s condition, and prior knowledge of the
dyad. And there is always the issue of familiarity
with digital life – especially digital social life, connec-
tivity conditions, and technological equipment.
We could continue, but the point of bringing all this
up is to illustrate that tele-linking is a complex matter
that must be approached from the vantage point of a
serious consideration of its complexity. In my
opinion, the COVID-19 pandemic brought tele-treat-
ment into the mainstream, especially in the face of the
social naturalization of hybrid interactions between
the tangible face-to-face and the virtual face-to-face.
So, de facto validated, the treatments that we are carry-
ing out today require scrutiny without falling into an a
priori reductionism or a simple sum of factors. A the-
orization would help us think about what experience is
showing us, without blind adaptation or having to
build a catalogue of considerations.
In this complex scenario, attempting an understand-
ing based on Freud’s “witch metapsychology“ may be
especially useful, as it allows us to read the technical
transformations without necessarily forcing a modifi-
cation of the pillars that support our practices. Metap-
sychology works for me as a good way to approach
innovation in a flexible manner, without jeopardizing
our subject’s perspective – which always requires
ethical, political, and existential considerations.
From this standpoint, I will present a series of reflec-
tions that bring together previous and convergent
developments in tele-linking, video game research
and social networks, and my work with parents in
modern upbringing. And, of course, clinical experi-
ence, both in tele-psychoanalytic settings and in listen-
ing to patients’ diverse experiences with virtual modes.
Digital user experiences, peer, and patient
reports: a starting point
My reflections are based on a practical issue that has
been proved to persist over time in conversations
with colleagues and people with tele-linking experi-
ences. Many people claim that telematically mediated
relationships are not merely different from tangible
face-to-face relationships, but that they are negative
2
We will not distinguish between related uses, sometimes separated phenomenologically or by intensity gradients, between immersion as absorption, envelop-
ment, involvement, and even sometimes flow. But we will distinguish it from the idea of presence.
or lacking in some way. Other activities, such as
typing on a keyboard or shopping online, can be
appreciated differently. However, when it comes to
interconnecting, most people refer to a loss: a “some-
thing” that is missing concerning the experience of
being with someone else. This opinion, at least accord-
ing to some of our research (Gutiérrez & Haye, 2017),
is not reserved only for people over the age of 50,
“digital foreigners,” or latecomers to the digital realm.
When asked about that “something missing,” a slew
of formulations emerge. “The body is lost,” “corpor-
ality is lost,” “the person is lost,” “the other is there
and is not there,” “the subject is lost,” “the encounter
is lost,” “the spontaneity is lost,” and so on. My favor-
ite formulation, perhaps because of the clarity with
which I want to communicate, is that of a person
outside the psi-sphere who defined it as “there is an
other-less-other”: a diminished sense of otherness.
On the other hand, there is clinical evidence that
some people cope very well with tele-connecting.
Some people even like it. Or they deal with various
levels of discomfort without experiencing it as a
source of suffering. In terms of treatments, we have
reports that many of them have worked very well.
There are telematic-mediated relationships that can
develop significant levels of intimacy. Some dyads
appear to be able to overcome this “something
missing” – at least partially: to use a well-known
term, it is a “good-enough” overcoming.
So, I wonder about the conditions that have made it
possible for this “something missing” to be restored or
elaborated in such a way that acknowledging it does
not preclude the development of forms of intimacy
and deep bonding in some dyads, while in other cir-
cumstances it has become an insurmountable issue.
Immersion and presence as the hallmark of
the virtual-digital
A consideration of research on human–computer
interactions helps to illustrate the state of mind in
virtual-digital activities, particularly video games,
social networks, and tele-conferences, where we
enter psychological states of intense involvement
known as immersion and presence.2
Immersion and presence are broadly conceived as
expressions of a perceptual illusion of nonmediation
(Lombard & Ditton, 1997, 2000) between two
environments. Immersion refers to the metaphor of
being underwater at various depths. Presence
emphasizes the reduction or elimination of the per-
ception of the spatiotemporal difference between

two environments, resulting in a subjective percep-
tion of actually being in the mediated environment.
The perceptual components of immersion and
presence involve continuous and real-time responses
of the human being’s sensory, cognitive, and affective
systems to objects and entities in the digital and non-
digital environments. The illusion of nonmediation
occurs when the person fails to perceive or recognize
the existence of a medium in their environment and
responds as if this medium were not there (Lombard
& Ditton, 2000). We can cite several examples of
this gamers at any given moment feel as if they are
inside the game. If they drive a race car, they move
the body alongside the game controller. If an object
comes towards the screen, they duck (and when
there are haptic controls this physical response is
even more intense); users of virtual reality glasses
physically stagger as they approach a precipice in the
virtual environment; and two people in a videoconfer-
ence have the impression of sharing the same place for
a moment (tele-copresence) – a central phenomenon
in tele-psychoanalysis.
Of course, when asked about the state of reality,
most of these people will respond by objectifying
the conditions and recognizing the distance: gamers
will recognize that it is a game and that they are not
actually in it; the users of virtual reality glasses will
recognize that it is a digitally constructed reality
and not a tangible one; and the interlocutors will
recognize that they are not in the same physical
location and do not necessarily share the same time
zone, but that they nevertheless share the same
moment. The point is that, while the activity is
taking place, it is perceived and felt differently.
It is important to consider that most of the current
theories about immersion and presence stem from
classic North American social psychology cognitivist
models3 in the tradition of information-processing
models. We will use them in another sense – a neo-
Freudian sense – from which we will try to give them
a renewed depth.
A psychoanalytic reading of immersion and
presence
Immersion and presence, in our perspective, should
be considered altered states of consciousness
3
Some developments, such as Riva and collaborators’ model of presence as an expression of the self (Riva, Waterworth, & Waterworth, 2004; Riva, Waterworth,
Waterworth, & Mantovani, 2011), defy this generalization. However, it shares the limitations of most positivist psychological frames in that they are trapped in
bio-automatisms (e.g., the pre-reflective self) and in conscious motivational aspects, which vastly underrepresents the dynamic factor of the psyche, and do not
accept notions such as the unconscious overdetermination or the work of the negative.
4
I base my assumptions on the premise of an ego that includes living responsiveness as one of its defining features.
5
In moments of presence the virtual-digital reality becomes the only reality.
6
Immersion shifts the “balance” of coexisting virtual-digital and tangible-material reality scenes, favoring the interest, objectification, and qualification of the
virtual-digital environment as a potentially responsive otherness, while decreasing interest in and attention to the sensory and living qualities of the tangible-
material.
Attempting a metapsychology for tele-copresence 3
caused by psychic processes of redistribution of
cathectic energy, which in classic psychoanalysis
have been examined from the scope of hypnoid
states – precisely those that have occupied a very
special place as the point of origin of the psychoana-
lytic method. These phenomena bring us back to the
hypnoid, albeit without a tangible mesmerizer. It is a
type of hetero-induced trance: via an excitatory
activity using a platform or digital environment that
interacts with us (e.g., Instagram auto-refresh selec-
tions or virtual reality scenarios); regarding specific
forms of synthetic alterities (e.g., a video game with
interacting avatars); or, as in our case study, in
response to a mediated human alterity that expects
communication as well. Psychic interest, overdeter-
mined by the unconscious, will be a decisive mobiliz-
ing factor for these hypnoid states. Let’s put it this
way: at its central core, immersion is a hypnoid
phenomenon based on the intense distribution of
mobile cathectic energy towards a form of digitally
mediated or virtual-digital alterity.
Also, in previous works (Gutiérrez, 2016, 2019b,
2021), we proposed that the set of immersion and pres-
ence phenomena cannot be explained without the
implementation of defense mechanisms – particularly
dissociation and ego-splitting – and in their intermedi-
ate forms, predominantly renegation. The hypnoid
nature of the immersion is based on the dissociation
of consciousness and an externally driven temporary
demand of ego-splitting, given the dual reality to
which the ego must respond.4 The user immersed in
the virtual-digital environment maintains an accep-
tance attitude toward the virtual-digital reality as if it
were a tangible reality (suspension of discredit), while
objectively appreciating the distance or difference
between virtual-digital reality and tangible reality.
But not every process of immersion leads to pres-
ence – only the most intense ones. To understand
presence we must also consider a degree of negative
hallucination of certain aspects of reality,5 in its
dual external and interoceptive objectal border
(Green, 1993).
So, taking everything into consideration, we
propose that immersion be understood as a
hypnoid state caused by an intense redistribution of
mobile cathectic energy,6 achieving various forms of
suspension of disbelief through the use of
4 L. A. Gutiérrez Herane
dissociation and in response to an external-tempor-
ary demand to split the ego relation from reality,
among other mechanisms. Presence, in addition to
that, includes negative hallucination as part of the
defining mechanism.7
Applications
Approaching the virtual-digital through the lenses of
immersion and presence provides a new vertex of
analysis for a variety of topics of our interest.
Dynamics of immersion and presence in tele-analysis
Immersion and presence should not be considered
states of constant intensity and quality. Their
achievement, strength, and preservation over time
depend to a large extent on the balance between
the use of the previously described psychic mechan-
isms at the service of wish fulfilment, the psychomo-
tor activity involved, and the attention to external
factors.
Just as Freud stated that the dream – as a compro-
mise formation – is the result of a psychic work that
allows one to maintain sleep while processing the
motions of desire, we will say that a central aspect
of the psychic work involved in immersion and pres-
ence consists of the tolerance of the split between the
tangible-material reality and the virtual-digital
reality, negativizing the first and intensifying the
interest in the second.8
The compromise achieved between the motions of
interest towards virtual-digital reality and towards
tangible-material reality can be altered, facilitated,
or interfered with by external (e.g., characteristics
of the physical setting, social privacy, characteristics
of the interface, connectivity, or the technical compe-
tence of the user) or internal (e.g., unresolved
anxieties, resistances towards treatment, or ego-inte-
gration) conditions. However, the efficiency factor
will have to do with cathexis distribution and the
psychic processes involved.
From a compromise formation perspective, we
understand that the classic resistance to treatment
may be expressed as a reluctance to tele-analysis
itself, or that we may encounter an overdetermined
complaint about connectivity (e.g., “I cannot hear
you well”), among many others. On the other
hand, we may see how a problem with technology
7
The near-hallucinatory quality of presence states is based on the negative hallucination of the tangible-material reference.
8
We must also consider the psychic tolerance for the near-hallucinatory.
9
This may also allow us to understand why in tele-analysis (unlike other digital activities) presence is expressed as “fleeting moments” that are so dependent upon
the conditions of the analytic process and its dynamics, in addition to relational, situational, and technological conditions. A related question is whether an ana-
lytic work carried out electronically can become a proper psychoanalytic process and what would be the role of these moments of presence in it. The value given
to the need of a regression for any analysis, as well as shared figurability-work (Botella & Botella, 2005), is involved in this question.
can be felt by the dyad as a relational difficulty, as a
limitation of analysts’ listening capacity, or as an ana-
lysand’s difficulty working through their conflicts (or
even symbolizing them). Immersion and presence are
maintained only to the extent that, in the manner of a
compromise formation, a certain balance of forces in
tension can be sufficiently preserved and that
environmental and psychic conditions allow it.
But this poses another problem. Unlike social net-
works and video games where a demand for reaction
through stimulating question/answer responses and
calls to action is employed, in tele-analysis
moments of presence are achieved without having
digital protocols demanding continuous attention
capture. In an analytic session, little or nothing may
be said, and an interesting narrative may not be con-
structed. There are no psychomotor “calls to action”
(e.g., pressing buttons, answering “hook” questions
on Instagram, or responding to the stimulus of a
video game), nor do we expect large attention-grab-
bing processes to take place in relation to a narcissis-
tic-specular gratification (e.g., receiving and
expecting “likes” on social media).
So, if the psychoanalytic encounter and its digital
interface are not organized around action, spectacle,
and/or immediate gratification, where do we find a
drive with sufficient intensity as to achieve
moments of presence? I believe we must return to
our origins: it will be in the interest towards the
cure and the dynamics of the transference – the
unconscious purposive ideas of the treatment and
the treater (Freud, 1900) – where we will find the
true drive for intense presence during a tele-analytic
session.9
Psychopathology
Another directly related topic is psychopathological
phenomena and processes, for example (Gutiérrez,
2019a, 2019b):
1. so-called “internet and video game addic-
tions” that can be understood as compulsive
digital uses, searching for an experience of
presence at the service of compensation
dynamics and ego-integration restitution;
2. more cryptic forms, such as wish-fulfilments
through excitatory action-based concretized
fantasies in video games, at the service of per-
verse or psychopathic dynamics;

3. the common search for presence in digital
modalities as a way of accessing neurotic and
non-neurotic temporary withdrawal states
(Winnicott, 1955), or even organized withdra-
wals as psychic retreats (Steiner, 1994);
4. the realization of fantasies-in-action, typical of
the neurotic rigidized playful experience;
5. and even the most classic forms of the impov-
erishment of the ability to love and work can
take advantage of the social invisibility of
immersion and presence.
Especially, the varied uses and exploitations of
video gaming at the service of ego needs (Winnicott,
1955) and the search for the restitution of depen-
dency using an artificial otherness may be under-
stood in greater depth from this theorization. An
immense field of study opens when trying to under-
stand our “digital states of mind” (Gutiérrez,
2023a) and their convergence with contemporary
psychopathology.
Creation and play
It must be noted that not all virtual-digital involve-
ment results in a psychopathological process. There
is a whole different dimension of human digital
experiences aligned with the ideas of virtual habitat,
creativity, play, and social encounter, which is also
dependent on achieving enough immersion and pres-
ence. A whole path opens up for us in understanding
the relationships between play and immersion in the
field of the intermediate area of human experience
(Winnicott, 1971). An interesting question arises:
to what extent is the use of defense mechanisms
part of a healthy and creative life? Perhaps the
answer will reveal diverse positions from theoretical
and personal convictions.
Psychopathologies of everyday digital life
The “psychopathologies of everyday (digital) life”
also show us an abundance of themes in which we
observe the effects of immersion and presence, with
distinctions that are not always clear. Let’s review
some examples:
. It is useless to tell a child who is playing video
games “just five more minutes!” since they will
nod while playing but will not be cognizant of
time passing. This is a recurring problem with
parenting. Is it that children “hear but do not
listen” due to their excessive involvement (not
10
For reasons of length, this final section was not included in the original presentation.
Attempting a metapsychology for tele-copresence 5
wanting to let go of the video game)? Or is it
that they “neither hear nor listen”?
. Only at the end of a game does a gamer become
aware of hunger, fatigue, or an urge to urinate.
Have they felt them but dismissed them
(immersion) or has there not been a qualitative
record of the organic tension (presence)?
. Instagram users do not realize that they have
been in the application for 30 minutes. It felt
like just five. What was this distortion of tem-
porary consciousness due to? Was it inattention
due to involvement, or a genuine negative hal-
lucination of time?
. WhatsApp users walking down the street trip or
run into posts (pop psychology has coined the
term Smartphone zombie, an urban problem
in highly populated cities). Is this temporal
ataxia suggestive of presence?
Distracted parenting and asperity in emotional
developments10
Another aspect worth mentioning, which is more
speculative but relevant for the future, is the one
that refers to the effects of immersion and presence
in relation to primitive and early emotional develop-
ment. In short, “digitally distracted parenting”
(Gutiérrez, 2017).
Take two disturbing but mundane scenes: a
mother breastfeeding her baby while scrolling
through social media, and a father rocking the stroller
while playing a casual video game. If ordinary primi-
tive emotional development depends on processes of
mutual regulation of the most delicate order possible,
how does this dulling of the caregivers’ attention
affect the mutual regulation processes?
Taking immersion and presence into account, it
would seem appropriate to raise serious concerns
about some digital activities as a potential threat to
children’s primitive emotional development. Accord-
ing to our theory, attentional captures in deep
immersion and presence are far more intense and
fixated than reading a newspaper, chatting with a
friend, or other pre-digital activities performed
“alongside” primary caring tasks. During immersive
states, responding to the demands of the child takes
longer. Caregivers become less sensitive and their
interactions less fluid.
Sufficient primitive care, understood both as living
contact and in its protective functions (Khan, 1963),
allows mutuality to develop over time into a sense of
continuity of being (Winnicott, 1945, 1988) and,
later, a vigorous sense of self. So, if digitally
6 L. A. Gutiérrez Herane
distracted parenting becomes a relational pattern, we
can expect their children to develop acute withdrawal
techniques as well as other forms of dissociation as a
response (Gutiérrez, 2019a, 2019b).11
Please consider that I am addressing child dis-
sociation resulting from the primary caregivers’
digital distraction, and not directly from children’s
use of technology – a different, complementary
problem. I believe that distracted upbringings lead
to distracted developments; emotional developments
that tend towards asperity, to roughness in contact,
and to relational clumsiness.12
Its extension to the children themselves
via the indiscriminate use of digital devices as frustra-
tion-coping devices (i.e., “digital pacifiers”)
validates and consolidates the parents’ communi-
cation of this “other-less-other” way of being.
Halfway through our living contact with our waking
reality.13
The here-now-with-me recovered
I conclude by recalling Argentine Jorge Ahumada
(1999), who said that all analytic treatment is
always a here-now-with-me situation. I think that
the breaking of the here-now-with-me holism is
that unnamed “something missing” that I was
talking about at the onset. When the telematic
setting decomposes the holism into two “heres”
and two “nows,” we encounter an “other-less-
other” because the tangible “with-me” experience
has been lost. We have lost the wake of human
contact (Gutiérrez, 2023b).
Immersion and presence are important phenom-
ena for us because they allow some treatments to
thrive by restoring, at least partially, the experience
of the here-now-with-me holism in the virtual-
digital encounter. In immersion and especially in
presence, playing becomes exciting, to the point of
nullifying time. And teletherapy feels close to the
point of nullifying distance.
But, on the other hand, the most insidious psy-
chopathological processes related to digital life will
take place in states of immersion and presence.
The need to address them thoroughly becomes
imperative for us. More importantly, I emphasize
the relevance of considering them as key features
of most of our contemporary virtual-digital activi-
ties, which will require our attention in the
coming years.
11
Acting out disorganization and antisocial tendencies can be alternatives to the extent of hope in reparation.
12
Sometimes also restlessness and exasperation.
13
Should we find here a source for our renewed cultural fascination with the living dead?
ORCID
Lucio Alberto Gutiérrez Herane http://orcid.org/
0000-0003-4792-1256
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Author
Lucio Alberto Antonio Gutiérrez Herane holds a
doctorate in psychotherapy research from Pontificia
Universidad Católica de Chile. He is a psychoanalyst
and full member of the Chilean Society of Psycho-
analysis (ICHPA), as well as an academic and train-
ing supervisor. He is a past president of ICHPA and
alternate member of the International Federation of
Psychoanalytic Societies executive board.
Dr. Gutiérrez works in private practice, treating adoles-
cents and adults and consulting parents on issues con-
cerning modern upbringing. He has also established a
longstanding line of conceptual and clinical research
on how humans interact with the virtual-digital,
based on Freudian–Winnicottian metapsychology.
Dr. Gutiérrez has published in various local and inter-
national journals as well as compilation books. His
paper “Silicon in ‘pure gold’? Theoretical contri-
butions and observations on tele-analysis by videocon-
ference” (Gutiérrez, 2016) reached The International
Journal of Psychoanalysis annual selection and was pub-
lished in English, Spanish, and German.