Presentation Announcements by Danielle Knafo (USA)

“Guys and Dolls: Relational Life in the High Tech Era”

Freud Museum (Anna Freud Centre). London, England, May 18, 2018.

This lecture employs psychoanalytic and evolutionary theories to explain the ease with which we humanize machines and dehumanize people. The quest and need for love, which combines both discovery and invention, is framed within Winnicott’s concept of the transitional object. A detailed case is presented of a man who lived with a high-end love doll. The case illustrates his simultaneous need to dehumanize women and humanize the doll, as well as his use of the analyst to help him transition from being with a doll to being with a human partner. Questions regarding technology’s growing impact on the future of relationships are surfaced.

“Guys and Dolls: A Pygmalion Fantasy”

Rapaport-Klein Study Group. Stockbridge, MA, June 9, 2018.

What would make a doll the ideal woman in a man’s eyes? Why prefer a doll to a real woman? The Pygmalion myth, in which a man creates, and falls in love with, the woman of his dreams has roots in antiquity. Now, with unprecedented technological advances, the ancient dream may soon be fully realized. Technology is changing what it means to be human, especially in how we relate to each other and to our machines. This presentation discusses the subculture of men whose erotic desire is directed at high-end love dolls. Jack, who called himself an “iDollator,” lived happily with his doll Maya for two years before eventually seeking psychodynamic therapy with me. I discuss my treatment with Jack with the aim of revealing his motives for living with and loving a doll. Additional discussion focuses on my own research into the subculture of iDollatry involving interviews with 15 men who claim to be engaged in intimate relationships with their doll(s). Questions are raised regarding the future of relational life as new technological breakthroughs will further soften the boundaries between self and machine.

“Digital Desire and the New Imposter: Catfishing” 

Israel Forum of Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy. July 4, 2018. 

Freud considered the unconscious a site of repressed wishes and desires whose influence extends to the farthest reach of conscious life. Today, such desires find new expression on the internet, which allows anonymity and accessibility. Replacing “real world” skins with digital ones, users create virtual personas to promote their secret passions. The virtual space of consciousness is well matched to the virtual space of the web, though sexual and social enactments within the latter can have dangerous real-world consequences. Examining the darker side of the marriage between desire and communication technology, focused through the phenomenon of “catfishing,” this paper raises questions about the nature of the human self and the role it plays in deception. Understanding how patients use the internet helps provide access to their unconscious desires.

GIF