Sh@me in Cyberspace. Relationships without faces: the e‐media and eating disorders

New technologies for communicating open up new possibilities for therapy and consultations. Online therapy shatters three of the traditional basic premises of therapeutic interaction: (1) visible contact; (2) talking; (3) synchronous—‘real time’—interaction. Online clinical work offers an ‘elasticity of communication’ that includes several factors, such as flexibility of location and time, varying levels of synchronicity, and flexibility to employ various online channels of contact. There is a mutual relationship between medium and comprehension, between technos and reflection. Each major change in communication technology has changed man and human relationships. This was the case when writing and printing was introduced, and it applies to digital networks. In Phaedo, Plato famously objected to the introduction of writing as opposed to speech, because, as he pointed out, writing reduces the richness of communication since it makes it impossible to read the speaker’s tone and bodily posture. Furthermore, he saw that if agreements were made at a distance, they would not be as binding as agreements sealed by the spoken word. He also thought that people would lose their ability to remember important events. Of course, all of this was true, but Plato could not foresee that, thanks to writing, we would gain a wider range of communication, new ways of making contracts at a distance, and a whole new cultural memory (Dreyfus, 2001). Investigating how computer-mediated communication changes relationships and creates therapeutic possibilities—cybertherapy— presents both a practical and a conceptual challenge. Who can benefit