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This contribution is written in response to Helen Morgan's paper 'Whiteness: A problem for our times'. A distinctive feature of her writing and thinking in this essay, and her new book, is how she moves easily and freely between psychoanalytic, sociological, political and psychological frameworks of understanding. In doing so her work exemplifies something that the psychoanalytic community has mostly been poor at achieving – a recognition of both its distinctive and unique potential to illuminate social and political processes, and a parallel acknowledgement of its need to enter into equilateral dialogue with other intellectual paradigms. Social and political life is historical, specific, local and complex, and not amenable to reductionist or universalizing modes of analysis and engagement. Through some examples I aim to add to Helen's very thoughtful and well researched paper, to show how psychoanalysis needs to respect other languages and methodologies for engaging with the world, render its own more accessible to non‐specialists, and relinquish its tendency to assume the status of a 'master discourse'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper advances a psychosocial hypothesis in understanding relations between recipients, and providers, of health and social care. In doing so, it draws on psychoanalytically informed work which considers the relation between the internal and external worlds and more generally the wider social context. The particular hypothesis in this paper relates to an understanding of an abusive form of relating underpinned by shame and envy. The paper suggests that exposure to these feeling states is more prevalent in a social world marked by increasing inequalities and environmental failures. This argument is underpinned with reference to qualitative and quantitative research, suggesting that antagonistic relationships are increasing and are part of a significant change in the culture. The argument is illustrated by a single detailed description of an initial consultation in an NHS psychotherapy service. An examination of the social context suggests how unhelpful or abusive relations may be manifest between health care providers and recipients, in care organizations and in the wider social world. This aspect of the argument is constructed with reference to relevant organizational and sociological literature. It is suggested that established relations of this type act to limit development, in this case a social development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

abstract This paper reviews the place of the therapeutic community in the mental health field, using a sociological framework to understand some key factors that have shaped the field and its response to this approach to therapy. The therapeutic community treatment method in mental health has been contested over the years. It has challenged conventional professional frameworks, it has dealt with a difficult client group, and it has been hostile to or at least awkward about establishing its evidence base. In this paper I reflect on the 'politics of evidence' in contested fields. I draw on the analysis of 'fields' from the work of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, and the analysis of scientific knowledge from an area of the social study of science, 'actor-network theory'. I argue that evidence is not neutral in contested fields, and that the technology of trials is not balanced with a theoretically informed understanding of the phenomena under scrutiny (causality versus meaning). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

abstract The paper describes a developing sociological and psychoanalytic approach to the study of 20 London families in the early 1950s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]