Gerardo Favaretto, Psychiatrist, Department of Psychiatry , Padova
Elisabetta Marchiori Psychiatrist , Department of Neurological and Psychiatric Sciences University of Padova
e mail: gerfa@mbox.vol.it

Here we present some ideas coming from the psychodynamic treatment of two cases. These patients work in the area ofcomputer technology and from the symptomatological point of view they showed deep difficulties in the relational field due to a psychotic structure of personality.

The first patient manifested important masochistic and self- destructive aspects. He join these sides of self with great difficulties in the therapeutic relationship as i.e. a great diffidence.

The second patient puts in evidence overall paranoic and omnipotent fantasies with similar difficulties in the relationship. The contact with the virtual world created in these patients an identification quite different from other possibilities of identification in the real world .

We approached these difficulties at two levels: 
1- the changes caused by this new space on the psychopathological level
2 the meaning of these changes in the relations mode

We think that the contact with the "net" doesn't have a therapeutic value and we try to show the similarity between these experiences and the genesis, at the psychopathological level, of a delusional identity.