This article recalls the main steps of a « psychotherapy by virtual » of a young psychotic teenager. In this article, we will see how the use of a computer game proves to be a vector of a first transference address from the psychotic to the clinician.
Therefore, the virtual will be studied through the magnifying glass of the pathology, revealing a function of « emergence » specific to cybernetics.
This function is triple. Firstly, this contingency loads the emergence promises, allowing the user to expect from the machine anything but, and much more than, it is able to deliver. Secondly, this emergence gives the machine the appearance of autonomy, which helps the patient to delude himself into not considering himself as the origin of his representations. Lastly, this generator of representations enables the symptom by giving it a form, thus processing what Freud called a « force of healing drive » preparing the way for a transference relation
Adolescence, 2012, 30, 1, 179-189