Introduction: Most psychotherapists had no choice during the COVID-19 pandemic but to offer teletherapy in order to provide needed treatment. Several psychoanalytic theorists wondered if the very concept of treatment would change without an embodied relationship in an office setting. Methods: To attempt to understand the current concept of effective psychodynamic treatment in the new norm of teletherapy, we surveyed practitioners from 56 countries and regions who remotely treated patients psychodynamically during the beginning months of the pandemic. We asked the practitioners to rank six factors felt to be important to psychodynamic treatment: use of the couch during sessions, session in-office or via teletherapy, cultural similarity between therapist and patient, number of sessions a week, patient factors (motivation, insightfulness, and high functioning) and therapist factors (empathy, warmth, wisdom, and skillfulness). Results: We received 1,490 survey responses. As predicted, we found that the therapist and patient variables were considered much more important (both tied as highest rankings) to effective treatment than any of the other variables, including if the therapy was in-office or by teletherapy. Discussion: Psychodynamic practitioners worldwide confirmed that the empathy, warmth, wisdom, and skillfulness of the therapist and the motivation, insightfulness, and level of functioning of the patient are most important to treatment effectiveness regardless if the treatment is remote or embodied.

We conducted an international survey to better understand both the negative and positive reactions of distance treatment during the pandemic. We received 1,490 survey responses from practitioners from 56 regions and countries who remotely treated patients psychoanalytically during the beginning months of the Covid-19 pandemic. Eighty-nine percent of the practitioners agreed or strongly agreed that distance treatment is valuable when the patient is house-bound or when travel would be difficult or impractical.

The growth of psychodynamic psychotherapy in China has been accompanied by a small number of ethical complaints. Some particular aspects of the logistics of building a practice in China have contributed to these ethical situations and are discussed. The CAPA Ethics Committee has worked with its Chinese counterparts to explicate the basic concepts of ethics and professional behavior, and ethics investigations, as they are articulated in the CAPA Ethics Procedures, the Ethics Code of the American Psychoanalytic Association and the Ethics Code of the Chinese Psychological Society. Continued education by CAPA and CIC about the essence of ethical and professional behavior will be a feature of its training going forward, and should be extended after graduation by means of continuing education programs.

The CAPA Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Training Program and the evolution of Internet videoconferencing applications have inspired and enabled graduates of its advanced program to seek distance psychoanalytic training, mainly in approved institutes of the American Psychoanalytic Association. Two forms of training, Formal Distance Programs and Distance Accommodation, are described. Distance analytic training presents technical and pedagogical challenges to institutes and to their faculty. Some of the objections to distance education that hamper participation by essential faculty are presented. These issues are discussed and remedies are suggested. With experience, these challenges can be addressed and the training experience becomes satisfying for faculty as well as students. The candidates themselves, in two letters, describe their positive experiences in simultaneous training. A sample of clinical work brought to supervision by a distance candidate in the early years of training is presented to give some sense of the aptitude for psychoanalytic work that exists among distance candidates. Some preliminary thoughts about the variations in the psychoanalytic processes are raised and will need to be supplemented by further experience.

International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic StudiesVolume 16, Issue 3 p. 195-197 COMMENTARY Remarks at the rally for Immigration Justice in Philadelphia, July 10, 2019 Ralph E. Fishkin, Corresponding Author Ralph E. Fishkin rfishkindo@gmail.com Institute of the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Correspondence Ralph E. Fishkin, Supervising Analyst and Faculty, Institute of the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia, Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, Thomas Jefferson University, 171 Gramercy Road, Bala Cynwyd, Philadelphia, PA 19004. Email: rfishkindo@gmail.comSearch for more papers by this author Ralph E. Fishkin, Corresponding Author Ralph E. Fishkin rfishkindo@gmail.com Institute of the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Correspondence Ralph E. Fishkin, Supervising Analyst and Faculty, Institute of the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia, Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, Thomas Jefferson University, 171 Gramercy Road, Bala Cynwyd, Philadelphia, PA 19004. Email: rfishkindo@gmail.comSearch for more papers by this author First published: 30 August 2019 https://doi.org/10.1002/aps.1629Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume16, Issue3September 2019Pages 195-197 RelatedInformation

This study compared diabetics with sexual dysfunction, nondiabetics with sexual dysfunction, and a group of controls on nocturnal penile tumescence (NPT) during three nights in a sleep laboratory, and penile response to erotic stimulation in the waking state on one of the nights. Both diabetic and nondiabetic dysfunctionals showed less erectile response to erotic films and tape than controls but did not differ from each other. In contrast, the diabetic dysfunctionals showed significantly weaker NPT response than both the nondiabetic dysfunctionals and the controls, and 58% of them (contrasted with 23% of nondiabetic dysfunctionals and 0% of controls) would be classified as organic using minimal NPT (less than 11.5 mm maximal increase in penile circumference during any nocturnal erection) as the sole criterion. There was a significant relationship between NPT and waking erections in response to erotic stimuli, especially in the diabetic dysfunctionals and the controls.