We invite submissions to a Special Issue of the American Journal of Psychoanalysis,

on

“Self, Psyche, and Technology,”

edited by Robert Prince

The psychological implications of technology are being discussed widely at the present moment. This interest has developed almost as rapidly as technological innovation itself, but its heritage goes back to Socrates who forewarned Phaedrus against the new technology of his day, writing, which he believed to be the enemy of memory and wisdom. Two millennia later, neuroscience confirms changes in the brain attributable to the use of technology. Philosophers as diverse as Walter Ong and Marshall McLuhan have addressed the effects of developing technologies of language and communication on how mind and social relations are organized. In any field such advances will expand possibilities well beyond our current understanding. Futurists, like Ray Kurzweil, have written about a technological singularity in which human beings merge with machines and Yuval Harari has discussed the possibility that humans may evolve into a new species through biotechnology.

We are aware of some of these impacts, as daily headlines announce the psychological and political effects of Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms along with the sophisticated algorithms that propel them, but we are only just beginning to grasp the possibilities of Artificial Intelligence and its potential influence. The subjects have ranged from the increase in rates of suicide in adolescence and all sorts of political violence attributable to social media, to a granular change in social and interpersonal relations to the alteration in the ability to trust the senses and sense of space, time, reality and redefinition of “truth.”

The proposed Special Issue is an invitation for a psychoanalytic exploration of the impact of technology on self and psyche and the implications for psychoanalysis, our field. We encourage colleagues to submit an abstract of up to 300 words describing their proposed paper and its relevance to the topic, as well as a brief biographical statement of the author(s). Deadline for Abstracts: May 1st, 2023.


Please send your submissions to Giselle Galdi, Editor-in-Chief (galdi.amjpa@gmail.com) and Robert Prince, Issue Editor (rprincephd@gmail.com).