From the Unconscious to the Algorithm
Platform Mediation, Psychic Economy, and Psychoanalytic Practice
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21748008 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Mariana Salles Kehl (0000-0001-9178-6149, Centro Universitário das Faculdades Metropolitanas Unidas, corresponding author), Heloisa Caldas (0000-0001-6264-1223, Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 23 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Publication date | 2026-06-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1556-9187 • E-ISSN: 1742-3341 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1002/aps.70050 |
| OpenAlex | W7159605152 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 21 |
This article offers a theoretical analysis, grounded in a critical narrative review within the Freudian‐Lacanian tradition, of how platform algorithms shape contemporary forms of subjectivity and raise new questions for psychoanalytic practice. The discussion focuses specifically on algorithmic systems of curation, ranking, personalization, and engagement metrics that organize visibility and circulation across social media, dating apps, streaming services, and search environments. Rather than treating such systems as autonomous causes of novel psychic structures, the article advances the hypothesis that platform algorithms function as complex socio‐technical operators that reorganize, accelerate, and intensify pre‐existing drive circuits. In this sense, they may come to occupy the fantasmatic position of an “algorithmic Other”: not a new symbolic Other, but a semblance of consistency, predictability, and seamless responsiveness that bears significant consequences for desire, fantasy, symptom formation, jouissance, and transference. The article pursues three aims: to clarify the epistemological status of the platform algorithm in relation to psychoanalytic theory; to distinguish between quantitative intensifications of already‐described psychic mechanisms and qualitative specificities of digital platform environments; and to examine the clinical and ethico‐political implications of these transformations, including the limits of chatbot‐mediated interventions. It argues, in conclusion, that psychoanalysis remains uniquely positioned to interrogate the contemporary alliance between algorithmic mediation, the promise of frictionless satisfaction, and the disavowal of lack
Narrative · Psychic · Psychoanalytic theory · Subjectivity · Unconscious mind · Digital Mental Health Interventions · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Sound Studies and Aurality
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| Highly cited | No |
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