Dr Hannah Zeavin (UC Berkeley) presented her paper ‘Remote Relations: A (Very Brief) History of Teletherapy‘ for the AboutFace research webinar series ‘Doing History’ in December 2021.
In this talk, Zeavin interrogates what therapy becomes when the traditional therapist is replaced by a computational actor, which she terms as “Auto-Intimacy.” The talk opens with an overview of very early attempts to write a responsive algorithm which modeled a therapeutic relationship and addresses changes in automated therapy over the past fifty years. At the earliest moment of experimentation with automated therapies, two strains of work emerged: the simulation and detection of a disordered mind in the hopes of automating intake, diagnosis, and psychological education, and the simulation of a therapist toward the dream of automating therapeutic treatment. Zeavin moved to a brief discussion of the politics and “gamification” of contemporary psychological applications such as “Ellie” and “Joyable” and “iHelp,” which attempt to assist persons with a wide range of mental health disorders in managing their behavior and moods. These applications, which are frequently offered by employers to employees, collapse the categories of wellness, stress, labor management, and mental health care.
You can watch the recording of Hannah’s talk on our YouTube channel, below. Please check out our Youtube channel for recordings of other research webinars and AboutFace events.
Hannah Zeavin, Ph.D. is a Lecturer in the Departments of History and English at UC Berkeley, and is on the Executive Committee of the Berkeley Center for New Media. She is the author of The Distance Cure: A History of Teletherapy (MIT Press, 2021), and at work on her second book, Mother’s Little Helpers: Technology in the American Family (MIT Press, 2023). Other work has appeared or is forthcoming from American Imago, Boston Review, Bomb! Magazine, Differences: A Journal of Cultural Feminist Studies, and beyond.
