We know that there are significant differences between generations of our patients in certain aspects related to the differences in historical and socioeconomic circumstances of their development. New informational technologies – smartphones and mobile Internet – are taking the role of an ever-present auxiliary ego for the generations born in the twenty-first century. This development is influenced by the characteristics of these technologies and by changes in parenting patterns. Psychoanalytic literature tends to focus on only the negative influences of these factors on the development of personality, identity, and interpersonal relationships. Probably this reflects our own fears about the invasion of new technologies into our lives and limits our understanding of the possible positive potential of these technologies for the younger generations. We still need to gain a better understanding of what it brings to our analytic work, and our transference–countertransference relationships with adolescent patients.
Encounters with totalitarian objects in the super-ego development of Generation Z adolescents
(2025)
Over the past three years we have encountered social processes that have shattered our steady way of living: the COVID pandemic, social unrests and splits after presidential elections, the war in Ukraine. Adults with a post-totalitarian personality have experienced a re-activation of their inner totalitarian objects, but >Gen Z< adolescents without the personal experience of living in a totalitarian system react differently to current realities. Practitioners are witnessing a dramatic increase in social anxieties and anorexia nervosa – psychopathologies characterized by the introjections and projections of intrusive controlling objects, a strict punitive super-ego that resembles the dynamics of inner totalitarian objects. This can be attributed to the increased exposure to the Internet during the COVID-related social isolation, with a decreased possibility for reality testing. The Internet acquired an overbearing influence on all domains of personality development for Generation Z individuals, including on the super-ego. The Internet houses totalitarian cyber-objects that increase their presence and influence in situations of social and developmental unrest, impinge on the development of psychic structures, and can lead to related pathological psychodynamics.
