Laszig, P.: Networking: Psychoanalytic Resources in the World Wide Web.

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In todays age of communication media, we are experiencing an electronic expansion. The global village, introduced by Marshall McLuhan in 1964 as a visionary metaphor, thus increasingly gains a factual dimension. Even psychoanalysis - or perhaps especially psychoanalysis - as a science of the unconscious with the corresponding implications for the individual and society does not remain uninfluenced by this worldwide development. The internet as a phenomenon of our times thus confronts psychoanalysts with the question of personal access be it in form of theoretical analysis or - more directly - functional application.

The Internet as a network resembles an international railway system and represents on the whole a collection of information and communication services. In the meantime not only universities but also other commercial services such as CompuServe, T-Online etc. have made access possible, so that with the beginning of 1997 it has been estimated that worldwide over 60 million people make use of the service. World Wide Web (WWW) is quite often equated with „the Internet". However, WWW is only one possible Internet application. At present, it is regarded as being the most userfriendly and most applied internet application. Using WWW, it is possible to transfer written texts, language, music as well as pictures and graphic arts through so-called „browser"-programmes.

It is undisputed that networks such as Internet or WWW allow acces to an immense collection of historic and up-to-date, written, visual and spoken information. The amount of data that can be stored and recalled through electronic data processing increases rapidly and the various techniques allow for a quicker recall. However, human ability to absorb information does not increase in the same intensity and we therefore increasingly need guidance in this realm of symbols, which (as yet) cannot be entered physically.

On a functional level, this means on the one hand a description of the necessary computer technology, its practicability as well as information on where to find specific resources, which could be of help in this „vast sea of electronic documents (of information)".

Network supported information and communication thus allows library or literature inquiries to be carried out directly using one’s own computer, literature can be ordered online, correspondence becomes faster, and on the whole results, perception and opinions in discussion groups, online conferences and discourses between experts can be passed on and exchanged much more quickly. In this way, the information circulating in the computer’s network serve to elaborate the intersubjectively shared scientific basis and thus supply psychonalytic thinking a new perspective.

By means of a systematic representation of the various methods of application available in the WWW, subject-specific resources are demonstrated and suggestions are given for their application.

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Parfen Laszig

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