Description
Which 'forms of feeling' are facilitated and which discouraged within the cultures and structures of modern state welfare? This book illuminates the social and psychic dynamics of these new public cultures of welfare, locating them in relation to our understanding of borderline states of mind in individuals, organizations and society. Drawing upon their idea of a psychoanalytic sensibility rooted in Wilfred Bion's notion of 'learning from experience', the authors aim to access the new structures of feeling now taking shape in marketized and commodified health and social care systems. Integrating their reflections on clinical work with patients, consultancy with public sector organizations, political analysis, and the tradition of Group Relations Training, they offer a wide-ranging perspective on how contemporary social anxieties are managed within modern public welfare. Our collective struggle with fears of dependency and loss, and the demands of living and working in an interdependent 'networked' world give rise to fresh challenges to our ability to maintain depth of emotional engagements in welfare settings.Part of the Tavistock Clinic Series
Reviews
'This is an important and, in many respects, daring book. It addresses itself to some of the most urgent and challenging areas of contemporary social policy and professional identity. It bases its position and findings in the experience of working intimately, as psychoanalytic psychotherapists as well as social workers, teachers and academics, with the basic reality of people's lives, both social and psychological. [...] Perhaps central to these is what the authors think of as the "state of mind" of society as reflected in its provision of care, variously for its citizens and for those experienced as "outsiders". It describes the hidden costs of the "service delivery" mentality and the sources of some of the social ills which are currently afflicting society. The brush strokes are both broad and fine and in so being introduce a new level of insight into what often seem like the overwhelmingly difficult problems of contemporary social existence.'- Margot Waddell, from Series Editor's Preface
Book Information
ISBN 9781855759053
Author Andrew Cooper
Format Paperback
Page Count 250
Imprint Karnac Books
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Reviews
'This is an important and, in many respects, daring book. It addresses itself to some of the most urgent and challenging areas of contemporary social policy and professional identity. It bases its position and findings in the experience of working intimately, as psychoanalytic psychotherapists as well as social workers, teachers and academics, with the basic reality of people's lives, both social and psychological. [...] Perhaps central to these is what the authors think of as the "state of mind" of society as reflected in its provision of care, variously for its citizens and for those experienced as "outsiders". It describes the hidden costs of the "service delivery" mentality and the sources of some of the social ills which are currently afflicting society. The brush strokes are both broad and fine and in so being introduce a new level of insight into what often seem like the overwhelmingly difficult problems of contemporary social existence.'- Margot Waddell, from Series Editor's Preface
Book Information
ISBN 9781855759053
Author Andrew Cooper
Format Paperback
Page Count 250
Imprint Karnac Books
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
