Hanging on the telephone: reflections on conducting psychotherapy over the phone during the Covid pandemic

This paper is a discussion of the experience of conducting psychotherapy sessions over the phone during the Covid pandemic. It explores the constraints and advantages of psychotherapy over the phone. It refers to Freud and the original setting of psychoanalysis and discusses the ideas of Bion about the need for the therapist to attune in a state of reverie to the client's communications. It reflects on the phone as a symbolic lifeline during the Covid crisis.