From the psychoanalyst’s couch to social networks

Given the important role that the psychoanalysis has played in the field of intervention on mental health for many years and the controversial debate that as therapeutical practice has been always originated and recently reactivated, it is of particular interest to discusses the actuality of the SRT fifty years later in the era of social networks. It does so by exploring the dynamics of the interchange between scientific and lay knowledge regarding psychoanalysis, psychiatry and mental health in light of a corpus of spontaneous conversations among Facebook, Twitter and Yahoo! Answers users from France and Italy compiled over a one-year period. The study enlarges psycho-social research on social networks, currently under the hegemony of sociometrics and computer science research. Briefly, in this new communicative scenario the results of our study show how different target groups act new practices, showing their positioning: users act as ‘infomediaries' of expert knowledge, providing informal help and suggestions online; experts open the doors of their “physical rooms” to “cyber rooms”