Conceptualising the digital “subject”: A Deleuzoguattarian framing of social media, desire and becoming in psychotherapeutic assemblages

This article explores the application of Deleuze and Guattari to the practice of psychotherapy and attempts to consider how Deleuzoguattarian theory might inform a therapeutic understanding of the ways in which the digital —that is, social media platforms, mediated communication devices, smartphones, and so forth—influences subjectivity and interrelationality in the networked age. A review of the relevant literature explores historical approaches to case formulation and highlights the field’s limited acumen towards the interplay between online technologies and the therapeutic encounter. Following a brief overview of Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophy, a four-stage analytical model is put forward and applied to a case vignette taken from my own therapeutic practice, the analysis of which demonstrates the possibility of understanding the contemporary therapy meeting—and the contemporary “digital” subject—through a Deleuzoguattarian lens.