EMILE,OR ON DEVASTATION: WHEN VIRTUAL BOUNDLESSNESS MEETS INNER EMPTINESS |
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| Authors: | ANDRZEJ WERBART |
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| Institution: | Training and Supervising Analyst and a fellow of the Swedish Psychoanalytical Society, an honorary member of the Polish Psychoanalytical Society, and a Professor of Clinical Psychology at the Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, Sweden. |
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| Abstract: | The author's starting point is a psychoanalysis conducted with Emile, a teenager who was unable to form close relationships and was living in a virtual world, planning a school massacre. For him, virtual reality functioned as a bottomless container in which he was no longer a victim of bullying but rather a god. When the boundlessness of cyberspace encounters a “black hole” in the psyche, any fantasies can be put into virtual realization and actions. By recounting his wickedness, violence, destructiveness, and perversion, Emile could start restoring his self boundaries and create his own autobiographical narrative. Unable to sustain the pain of mourning his envelope of invulnerability and omnipotence, however, he prematurely terminated analysis. |
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| Keywords: | Adolescence cyberspace destructiveness perversion psychosis suicide violence school massacre self boundaries skin ego omnipotence mourning |
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