The Musical Semiotics of Voice in Distance: Some Reflections on the Question of Teleanalysis.

Within the context of the debate over teleanalysis, I wish to reintroduce the discussion of voice as the primary link between analyst and patient, a link present in analysis on the phone. Far from questioning the importance of the in-person analysis, I aim to emphasize the voice, the musical semiotics of emotions, as a critical, if not the most vital, aspect of psychoanalysis as a "talking cure" and an art of listening. Insofar as the speaking is instituted in the body, the body is present through voice, even in the virtual analytic room in teleanalysis.

Is the Noise the Message in Psychoanalytic Listening?

In psychoanalytic discourse, the question of meaning or lack thereof should be relegated only to the domain of the interlocutor's perception. Not every slip of the tongue or bungled action is necessarily precipitated by some unconscious motivation, although one may construct meaning for it (). What is a message versus a noise depends on the perceptual experience of the analytic couple, and a cigar, if not just a cigar, depends on the context-specific fantasy of the perceiver.

Contextualized Language and Transferential Aspects of Context.

The analytic process, in which the patient's and the analyst's internal characters struggle to create a script through the analysand's mouth and the analyst's pen, resembles Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author (1921): different characters come together on the analytic stage to rehearse the analyst's role as coauthor of a play that depicts the ongoing analytic saga. To compose the text for the interplay of characters, the author must search for contexts that may confer meaning upon the words and actions of characters. This involves a search for a mise en scène (stage) that will assign mise en sens (meaning) to the actors' role-specific dialogue.

The couch and the chador.

The authors present a clinical discussion of the psychic functions of the chador, a veil-like outer garment worn in public by some Iranian women. Drawing on Anzieu's theoretical concept of the skin ego, the authors suggest that the chador does not just cover the body; it may also envelop the psyche and function as a second skin for the ego. The maternal function of a holding environment is symbolically displaced on any clothing that 'hides,''covers,''veils,' or 'dresses' the body.