From Room to Zoom and Beyond: Navigating Screen Relations-Based Psychoanalytic Care and Emerging Clinical Contexts

with Todd Essig, PhD

An Online Workshop for WAWI Graduates, Faculty and Candidates

presented by the WAWI Curriculum Committee

SATURDAY, JANUARY 10th, 2026

10:00am-1:00pm/Eastern

ABOUT THIS WORKSHOP

Tele-analysis and tele-sessions are similar enough to sustain analytic work, yet distinct enough to require thoughtful modifications in one’s clinical stance. This workshop will explore how screen relations shape self-experience and relational experience, impacting the transference and countertransference.  Attendees will be encouraged to participate with questions and comments throughout the program.

We will consider such themes as sustaining analytic presence in physical absence, the shifting functions of gaze and silence, the substitution of shared space with two private spaces, and the altered spectrum of enactment possibilities. By sharing and discussing clinical material, we will translate these concepts into actionable modifications of frame and technique.

While our focus will remain on how screen relations-based treatments differ from in-person work — and on why those differences matter rather than treating one as a lesser version of the other, we will also consider emerging contexts, such as AI-mediated interactions, that are transforming clinical practice beyond both the consulting room and the Zoom screen.

ABOUT THE PRESENTER

Todd Essig, PhD, is a psychologist and psychoanalyst known for pioneering in the creative uses of mental health technologies. In addition to his full time NYC-based clinical practice, he publishes, lectures, and consults internationally on forming best practices in the use of technology to serve human purposes. His primary academic affiliations are Faculty and Training and Supervising Psychoanalyst at the William Alanson White Institute in New York City and Adjunct Clinical Professor at the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychoanalysis.

Dr. Essig is a member of the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA) where he served on the Task Force on Distance Training and on the Task Force on Training in Contemporary Times where he co-authored task force reports. As a member of the American Psychoanalytic Association (APsaA), he co-chaired the COVID-19 Response team. Recently, in the current center of his non-clinical professional life, he founded and is Co-Chair of APsA’s Council on Artificial Intelligence. He teaches and lectures at institutes and societies in the US and in Japan, Canada and England.