The Tavistock Clinic Series

The aim of the Tavistock Clinic Series is to make available to the public the clinical, theoretical, and research work that is most influential at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. The series sets out new approaches in the understanding and treatment of psychological disturbance in children, adolescents, and adults, both as individuals and in families.

Books pattern


The Editors

Jocelyn Catty, MA (Oxon), DPhil, is a Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist who trained at the Tavistock, and an adult psychotherapist. She is Research Lead for the doctoral training in child psychotherapy at the Tavistock Centre, and Co-Lead Child Psychotherapist for a CAMHS service in south London. She was previously Senior Research Fellow in Mental Health at St George's, University of London, and has published in social psychiatry, psychotherapy, and English literature.

Kate Stratton is a Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist in the Adolescent & Young Adult Service at the Tavistock Clinic, and Course Tutor on the Tavistock’s clinical training in child and adolescent psychotherapy. She is a former editor of the Journal of Child Psychotherapy.

Margot Waddell is a Fellow of the Institute of Psychoanalysis. She has a background in Classics and literature and took a PhD at Cambridge on George Eliot’s novels. She is a Child Analyst and worked for many years as a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist at the Tavistock Clinic, London. Her publications include Inside Lives: Psychoanalysis and the Growth of the Personality (2002) and On Adolescence: Inside Stories (2018).


The Series

Mourning and metabolization

Paperback and hardback editions available from Routledge

By bringing together perspectives from psychoanalysis and literary studies and considering the reciprocal relation between ideas about mourning and our internal worlds, this book provides a guide to thinking theoretically about loss and how we deal with it.

Rael Meyerowitz conceptualizes the work of psychic internalization required by loss in terms of bodily digestion and metabolization. In this way, successful mourning can be likened to the proper processing of physical sustenance, while failed mourning is akin to indigestion, as expressed in various forms of melancholia, mania, depression, and anxiety. Borrowing from the methodology of literary criticism, the book conducts a detailed treatment of these themes by drawing on a series of psychoanalytic works, including those of Freud, Ferenczi, Karl Abraham, Klein, Loewald, Torok, Nicolas Abraham, and Green, while paying close critical attention to a selection of literary works such as those by William Faulkner, Wallace Stevens, and Sylvia Plath.

Aimed at clinicians as well as readers with a more academic interest in psychoanalytic theory and language, the close-reading format offered by this book will also enable students in psychoanalytic and psychotherapy courses to engage deeply with some central texts and key concepts in psychoanalysis.

Complex trauma

Paperback and hardback editions available from Routledge

The new diagnosis of Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder presents diagnostic and treatment challenges that need to be grappled with, since, in a troubled world, it is increasingly important to understand the impact and aftermath of traumatic experiences and, crucially, how to work with those affected by them.

In Complex Trauma, Joanne Stubley and Linda Young have assembled a fascinating range of approaches in order to explore the questions of understanding and intervention. They detail the relevance of an applied psychoanalytic approach, both in the Tavistock Trauma Service and, more broadly, in illuminating understanding of traumatized individuals. The book includes chapters related to the impact of trauma on the body, as well as on the mind, incorporating neurobiological and attachment theory to develop ideas on the impact and aftermath of complex trauma. A number of specialist areas of trauma work are covered within this volume, including work with adolescents, with refugees and asylum seekers, with military veterans, and with survivors of child sexual abuse.

The editors bring together chapters that will be of interest to those working with traumatized individuals in a variety of settings and using different modalities. The central importance of relationships, as understood within the psychoanalytic model, is depicted throughout as being at the heart of understanding and working with traumatic experience.

Group relations and other meditations

Paperback and hardback editions available from Routledge

This book examines the Tavistock tradition of using group relations conferences as temporary training organizations for groups and institutions, and how those can inform and enrich the theory and practice of experiential learning more generally.

First, this book analyses the structures, rituals, and beliefs of group relations conferences, drawing on the author’s learned experience in the field, followed by meditations extending to broader areas, such as the social nature of corruption, martial arts, Western culture’s longing for creativity, and the use of drawing in social science research. It addresses the tension between psychoanalysis and systemic theory in group relations thinking, refining and re-defining key concepts of the practice, challenging notions of dependence and dependency, performative poetics, learning, the politics of power, nostalgia, and the unspoken reasons for the wish to join conference staff teams. It offers a critique of the polarity concerning terms such as spontaneity, the sense of mystery, openness to the unexpected, and trust in unconscious processes, as opposed to the desire for certainty and the confusion, anxiety, and aggression evoked when groups find themselves without familiar signposts. Drawing on his thinking developed over the course of a professional life as organizational consultant, artist, designer, teacher, researcher, and poet, the author invites the reader to challenge boundaries towards a less inflexible and defended engagement with the Other. The metaphor of bricolage, an activity that inspires creativity and originality, suggests possible ways of putting known things together to approach new meaning as provisional and shifting. The many strands thus gathered reveal new dimensions of group life that crucially affect our everyday living and surviving, both as individuals and as members of society.

This work will allow psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, group therapists, organizational consultants and trainers to put the lessons learned from group relations conferences into everyday practice.

Child psychoanalytic psychotherapy in primary schools book cover

Paperback and hardback editions available from Routledge

This book investigates the experiences of severely troubled children and their families, teachers, and child psychoanalytic psychotherapists working together in primary schools.

The book begins by looking at children’s emotional life during the primary school years and what can disrupt ordinary, helpful social development and learning. It examines what child psychoanalytic psychotherapy is, how it works, and why it is offered in primary schools. The following chapters intersperse accounts of creative child psychoanalytic approaches with interviews with parents, carers, teachers, and clinicians. A section focusing on mainstream primary schools presents parent–child interventions for a nursery class; child group psychotherapy with children from traumatized families; and consultation to school staff, with personal accounts from parents, a kinship carer, a family support worker, a deputy head, and a child psychotherapist. Chapters then focus on alternative educational settings, featuring a school for children with severe physical and cognitive disabilities; a primary pupil referral unit; and a therapeutic school. These chapters show psychotherapy with a non-verbal boy with autism; therapy groups with children who have missed out on the building blocks of development alongside reflective groups for school staff; and child psychotherapy approaches at lunchtime and in breaks, with insights from a parent, a clinical lead nurse, a head teacher, and a child psychotherapist. Finally, there is an evaluation of evidence about the impact of child psychotherapy within primary schools.

Recognizing the increasing importance of attending to the emotional difficulties of children whose relationships and learning are in jeopardy, this book will be invaluable to all those working in primary schools, to commissioners of child mental health services, to parents and carers, and to experienced and training clinicians.

Sustaining depth

Paperback and hardback editions available from Routledge

Sustaining Depth and Meaning in School Leadership: Keeping Your Head concerns the emotional and psychological experience of school leadership—in particular, the felt experience of life as a headteacher. It describes the pressures and rewards of the role, together with some of the ways that school leaders successfully sustain and develop themselves and their teams in what has become an increasingly complex, challenging, and highly accountable role.

This book explores the personal experience of leading schools. Part I provides an overview and analysis of current and historical trends in school leadership and offers some theoretical frameworks for making sense of these. Part II then offers psychodynamic approaches to supporting and developing school leaders and the impact that trends in executive education continue to have on this. Part III looks at approaches to school leadership development more generally, including team development; influences from the business world; the growth of mentoring and coaching as a leadership intervention; the design and evaluation of leadership development programmes; and a case study on whole-system development. The final word is given to ten serving headteachers and deputies and their leadership journeys. This range of chapters, concepts, and perspectives will support school leaders to maintain an emotional equilibrium while navigating the multilayered tightrope of intrapsychic, interpersonal, and organizational dynamics inherent in school life.

Rooted in Jackson and Berkeley’s belief that school leaders are likely to be at their best when they find their own unique and authentic way of taking up their leadership role, this book is an accessible, supportive, and developmental contribution for all those involved in education leadership.

A for adoption book cover

Paperback and hardback editions available from Routledge

The experience of adoption—both adopting and being adopted—can stir up deep emotional pain, often related to loss and early trauma. A for Adoption provides insight and support to those families and individuals facing these complex processes and challenges.

Drawing on both a psychoanalytic, theoretical framework and first-hand accounts of adopters, adoptees, and professionals within the adoption process, Alison Roy responds to the need for further and consistent support for adoptive parents and children, to help inform and understand the reality of their everyday lives. This book explores both the current and historical context of adoption, as well as its depiction within literature, before addressing issues such as conflict in relationships, the impact of significant trauma and loss, attachment and the importance of early relationships, and contact with birth families.

Uniquely, this book addresses the experiences of, and provides support for, both adoptive professionals and families. It focuses on understanding rather than apportioning blame, and responds to a plea from a parent who requested "a book to help me understand my child better".

Sexuality and Gender Now

Paperback and Hardback editions: August 21, 2019 Available from Routledge

Sexuality and Gender Now uses a psychoanalytic approach to arrive at a more informed view of the experience and relationships of those whose sexuality and gender may not align with the heterosexual "norm". This book confronts the heteronormative bias dominant in psychoanalysis, using a combination of theoretical and clinical material, offering an important training tool as well as being relevant for practicing clinicians.

The contributors address the shift clinicians must make not only to support their patients in a more informed and non-prejudicial way, but also to recognise their own need for support in developing their clinical thinking. They challenge assumptions, deconstruct theoretical ideas, extend psychoanalytic concepts, and, importantly, show how clinicians can attend to their pre-conscious assumptions. They also explore the issue of erotic transference and countertransference, which, if unaddressed, can limit the possibilities for supporting patients more fully to explore their sexuality and gender. Theories of psychosexuality have tended to become split off from the main field of psychoanalytic thought and practice or read from an assumed moral high ground of heteronormativity. The book specifically addresses this bias and introduces new ways of using psychoanalytic ideas. The contributors advocate a wider and more flexible attitude to sexuality in general, which can illuminate an understanding of all sexualities, including heterosexuality.

Sexuality and Gender Now will be essential reading for professionals and students of psychoanalysis who want to broaden their understanding of sexuality and gender in their clinical practice beyond heteronormative assumptions.


Therapeutic Approaches with Babies and Young Children in Care

Paperback – 2019-07-30 Available from Routledge

Therapeutic Approaches for Babies and Young Children in Care: Observation and Attention is about the value of observation and close attention for babies and young children who may be vulnerable to psychological and attachment difficulties. Case studies explore the potential for observation-based therapeutic approaches to support caregivers, social workers, and professional networks. A third theme in the book is the roots of observation-based approaches in psychoanalytic infant observation and the contribution of these ways of working to professional training and continuing development.

Using case examples, Jenifer Wakelyn illustrates observational ways of working that can be practised by professionals and family members to help children express themselves and feel understood. The interventions focus on the early stages of life in care and on the "golden thread" of relationships with caregivers. The book explores contemporary neuroscience and child development research alongside psychoanalytic theory to explore the role of attention in helping children to develop the internal continuity that sustains the personality and protects against the fragmenting impact of trauma. 

Therapeutic Approaches for Babies and Young Children in Care is written for social workers, teachers, medical staff, and other professionals whose work brings them in contact with the youngest children in care; it will also be relevant for commissioners, managers, and trainers as well as mental health clinicians who are starting to work with children in care. It will provide a valuable insight into the lives of infants and young children in the care system and the applications of psychoanalytic infant observation.


New Discoveries in Child Psychotherapy


Paperback – 2019-06-13
Available from Routledge

New Discoveries in Child Psychotherapy presents eleven new contributions to child psychoanalytic research, most of them based on the experience of the clinical consulting room. Each chapter is the work of an experienced child psychotherapist or child analyst, vivid in their description of the children and families they encountered. Their understanding of the "inner worlds" of patients and the clinical consulting room is clearly evidenced in their analysis of clinical presentations.

The chapters are the result of the psychoanalytic clinical and observational practices of their authors, allied to their use of rigorous qualitative research methods, in particular Grounded Theory and interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). They describe developments of child psychoanalytic knowledge in several fields, including autism, psychotherapy with severely deprived children, and the study of early infancy. They demonstrate advances in child psychoanalytic theories and methods and the development of new forms of clinical service provision. Contested issues in psychoanalytic research are thoroughly evaluated, showing how it can be made more accountable and rigorous through the adaptation of established qualitative research methods to the study of unconscious mental phenomena.

New Discoveries in Child Psychotherapy will be an essential text in the field of child psychoanalysis and will be highly useful in psychotherapy and psychoanalysis training courses and for psychoanalytic researchers, as well as for practitioners.


Researching the Unconscious

Paperback – 2019-02-21
Available from Routledge

Researching the Unconscious provides an exposition of key issues in the philosophy and methods of the social sciences that are relevant to psychoanalysis, both as a clinical practice and as a human science.

These include the debates initiated by Thomas Kuhn’s theory of scientific revolutions, the "actor-network theory" of Bruno Latour, the ideas of philosophical realism, distinctions between "meaningful" and "causal" explanation, and the relevance of complexity theory and "part–whole analysis" to psychoanalysis. The book goes on to discuss specific forms and methods of psychoanalytical research, including the role of case studies, of outcome research, and of "grounded theory" as a key methodological resource, of which it provides a detailed example. The book concludes by outlining principles and methods for psychoanalytic research in the wider contexts of infant observational studies, society, and culture. 

Michael Rustin provides a unifying account of the methodological principles that underlie the generation of knowledge in psychoanalysis, in the light of recent developments in the philosophy and sociology of science. In doing so, it provides a coherent rationale for psychoanalytic investigation, which will be of value to those pursuing research in this field.

Researching the Unconscious is unusual in its being based both on a deep understanding of and respect for psychoanalytical clinical practice and on its author’s wider knowledge of the philosophy and sociology of science. It is unique in its comprehensive approach to the principles of psychoanalytic research.


On Adolescence

Paperback – 2018-06-06
Available from Routledge

Adolescence and adolescent states of mind have seldom captured so much attention publicly, nor have they stirred so much anxiety and disturbance privately. This long acknowledged, problematic, transitional world between childhood and adulthood is especially fraught, these days, with the assaults and pressures of contemporary culture and modern technology.

The heart of the book lies in the exploration of the inner lives of these young people, whether or not they find their way to clinical services. It sets out to illuminate the sorts of things that go wrong, and how we can help to address them – the crises of identity, gender, loss, self-harm, bullying, depression, anger, suicidal impulses, anxiety, and so much more. On Adolescence: Inside Stories is intended for all those concerned with adolescence, and adolescent states of mind at whatever age or stage.

Paperback – 2018-05-31
Available from Routledge

Turning the Tide

Since it was founded in 1920, the Tavistock Clinic has developed a wide range of developmental approaches to mental health which have been strongly influenced by the ideas of psychoanalysis. It has also adopted systemic family therapy as a theoretical model and a clinical approach to family problems. The Clinic is now the largest training institution in Britain for mental health, providing postgraduate and qualifying courses in social work, psychology, psychiatry, and child, adolescent, and adult psychotherapy, as well as in nursing and primary care. It trains about 1,700 students each year in over 60 courses.

This important volume traces an impressive range of descriptions, all clinically based, of the work of the remarkable Fitzjohn's Unit, which has about 60 patients under its care at any one time. The book also evokes a clear sense of collective commitment, one that has lasted over seventeen years, since its beginnings as an experimental project that was set up by David Taylor in 2000.


Conjunctions

Paperback – 2018-05-21
Available from Routledge

Conjunctions engages separately and connectively with therapeutic social work practice, psychoanalytically informed research methods and philosophy, as well as contemporary human service organisational cultures and predicaments, and the societal dynamics affecting social work and psychoanalysis. The chapters are gathered into several thematic sections: Practice, Organisations, Politics Policy and Culture, Research and a final chapter on death, dying and social work.

The writing on each topic uses a blend of psychoanalysis, social theory and philosophy to illuminate and develop a psycho-social account of individual, organisational and social processes and dynamics. The author draws directly upon his own and others lived experience of clinical work, organisational stresses and strains, social processes, and research to generate conceptualised accounts of inner and outer experiential worlds in the hope of mobilising emotional and thinking responses in his readership. Conjunctions is therefore intended to be an intervention in modern professional, therapeutic and social life, as well as a contribution to understanding it.



Paperback – 2017-06-28
Available from Routledge

Melanie Klein revisited

While much writing has been devoted, predominantly by contemporary Kleinian adult psychoanalysts, to the Kleinian and post Kleinian development of Klein's work, comparatively little has recently been written about the ongoing importance and character of Klein's clinical work for contemporary psychoanalytic psychotherapy or analysis with very small children (2 - 6 year olds). Little attention now seems to be paid to the revolutionary character of her work from the start (in the early 1920s) with this age group and its challenges, still relevant today, or to her recognition of the importance of mother-infant relations in the period long before World War II brought investigation into and understanding of problems of attachment, separation and loss. This book addresses these issues and re-explores Klein's work in these (and other) areas. This book is concerned primarily with Klein's work with pre-latency children and aims to give these small children more of the voice today that Melanie Klein herself discovered.

Paperback – 2017-03-10
Available from Routledge

Doing things differently

Doing Things Differently celebrates the work of Donald Meltzer, who was such a lively force in the training of child psychotherapists at the Tavistock Clinic for many years. The book represents the harvest of Meltzer's thinking and teaching, and covers such topics as dimensionality in primitive states of mind, dreaming, supervision, and the claustrum.


Paperback – 2017-01-20
Available from Routledge

Talking Cure

Foreword -- Beginning of the Mind -- Play -- Are Children Innocent? -- How Does Growing Up Happen? -- What Causes the Mind? -- Love -- Dreaming -- What Is a Family? -- Groups -- Work -- Food for the Mind -- Attitudes to Normality and Psychiatric Illness -- Mental Distress and Mental Illness -- Therapy -- Registering Time -- Age -- The Future -- Useful Information

Short-term Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy for Adolescents with Depression

Paperback – 2016-11-01
Available from Routledge

Short-term Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (STPP) is a manualised, time-limited model of psychoanalytic psychotherapy comprising twenty-eight weekly sessions for the adolescent patient and seven sessions for parents or carers, designed so that it can be delivered within a public mental health system, such as Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services in the UK.

It has its origins in psychoanalytic theoretical principles, clinical experience, and empirical research suggesting that psychoanalytic treatment of this duration can be effective for a range of disorders, including depression, in children and young people. The manual explicitly focuses on the treatment of moderate to severe depression, both by detailing the psychoanalytic understanding of depression in young people and through careful consideration of clinical work with this group. It is the first treatment manual to describe psychoanalytic psychotherapy for adolescents with depression.

The treatment approach described in this manual has been used in a multi-site randomised controlled trial in the UK, 'Improving Mood with Psychoanalytic and Cognitive Therapies' (IMPACT) and internationally. It is presented here as a treatment to be used in routine clinical practice and will be of interest to child psychotherapists, multi-disciplinary professionals in young people’s mental health, service providers, and researchers alike.

After describing theoretical models of depression and presenting an overview of STPP as a treatment model, the manual details the specific stages of the STPP process for the therapist and adolescent patient. It then describes the nature and scope of parallel work with parents and gives a detailed account of the function of supervision.

Making Room for Madness

Paperback – 2016-04-12
Available from Routledge

Series Editors' Preface -- Preface -- Foreword -- Introduction -- Theory in practice -- Psychoanalytic supervision in mental health settings -- Being driven mad: towards understanding borderline states -- Pinned against the ropes: psychoanalytic understanding of patients with antisocial personality disorder -- Tuning in to the psychotic wavelength -- The role of psychoanalytic assessment in the management and care of a psychotic patient -- Deliberate self-harm: "I don't have a problem dying, it's living I can't stand" -- Anorexia: the silent assassin within -- Hysteria: the erotic solution to psychological problems -- Conclusion

Couple Dynamics

Paperback – 2015-11-27
Available from Routledge

"This innovative and important collection of papers connects the organisation of psychic life in infancy, the internal world of the adult couple and the functioning of groups in society through the thread of a Kleinian and post-Kleinian reading of the Oedipus complex. Rich in theoretical exposition and clinical illustration, and penned by a stellar cast of contributors, it traces processes that influence whether the path of containment and creativity or fear and fragmentation are chosen in the face of unconscious fantasy and environmental adversity. Complex ideas are presented with clarity, and integrated into a coherent whole. The microcosmic worlds of intra-psychic reality and the macroscopic worlds of social reality are linked through studying the dynamics of couple relationships in ways that inform and challenge those of us working in different professional settings to promote generosity in the dealings between people." --Christopher Clulow PhD, Senior Fellow, The Tavistock Centre for Couple Relationships, London.

"This book demonstrates the centrality of the internal couple as an unconscious dynamic in the individual mind, and illustrates its representations in couple, family and group relationships. Oedipal processes, primitive and more mature, inform how individuals form intimate relationships, how couples struggle to create space between them to manage love and aggression, how parents accommodate the triangulation arising from the birth of a child…..and all of these dynamics exist in groups, organisations and society as a whole. Theoretically sophisticated, clearly written, illustrated with vivid clinical examples, the discussions in the text will stimulate and add to the thinking of all clinicians and consultants working with individuals, couples, families, groups and organisations." --Stanley Ruszczynski, Psychoanalyst and psychoanalytic couple psychotherapist, Clinical Director, Portman Clinic, Editor of ‘Intrusiveness and Intimacy in the Couple’ and ‘Psychotherapy with Couples’

"Aleksandra Novakovic’s collection of essays by luminaries in the field of couple dynamics is unique. Its breadth of crucial topics begins with intimate issues such as the interaction of couples’ internal worlds and couples’ use of triangular space. It then offers vivid clinical explorations of several developmental couple issues, and concludes by considering the often-overlooked area of couples’ membership in groups and organizations. The book’s multidimensional exploration of couple life and couple therapy ensures that it will remain a vital resource to our field for decades to come." --David Scharff, MD is Co-founder of the International Psychotherapy Institute, co-editor of Psychoanalytic Couple Therapy, and Chair, the International Psychoanalytic Association’s Working Group on Family and Couple Psychoanalysis.

Towards Belonging

Paperback – 2015-04-30
Available from Routledge

Series Editor’s Preface -- Preface -- Foreword -- Introduction -- Towards belonging: conceptual definitions -- Some reflections on “towards belonging” for children in care: guided journey or “wandering lost”? -- Towards belonging: the role of a residential setting -- Establishing a sense of belonging for looked after children: the journey from fear and shame to love and belonging -- From owning to belonging -- Belonging inside: a child in search of herself -- The smell of belonging -- Fostering relationships for looked after children -- Existential yearning: a family systemic perspective on belonging -- Endpiece

Social Defences

Paperback – 2014-11-19
Available from Routledge

Series Editor’s Preface -- Introduction: revisiting the paradigm -- Theoretical -- Obsessional–punitive defences in care systems: Menzies Lyth revisited -- Beyond identifying social defences: “working through” and lessons from people whispering -- A psycho-social perspective on social defences -- Social defences in the information age -- Defences against innovation: the conservation of vagueness -- Reconceptualizing social defences for the purpose of organizational change: causes, consequences, and the contribution of cultural theory -- Health and nursing -- Reflections on Isabel Menzies Lyth in the light of developments in nursing care -- “I’m beyond caring”: a response to the Francis Report -- Anxiety at the front line -- A partnership of policing and health systems: containing the dynamics of sexual violence -- Running the gauntlet of institutional defence: from the prison gate to the hospital wing -- The private sector -- Extreme work environments: beyond anxiety and social defence -- Corporate cultures and inner conflicts -- Defences against anxiety in the law -- Social welfare and education -- Spotlit: defences against anxiety in contemporary human service organizations -- Still not good enough! Must try harder: an exploration of social defences in schools -- Work discussion groups as a container for sexual anxieties in schools -- Social defences in nurseries and the contemporary value of the concept -- Projective identification and unconscious defences against anxiety: social work education, practice learning, and the fear of failure -- Unconscious defences against anxiety in a Youth Offending Service

Sibling Matters

Paperback – 2014-04-30
Available from Routledge

This original book gives a timely exploration of the importance of sibling relationships from a multi-disciplinary perspective. It presents for the first time an account of the work on brothers and sisters by Sigmund Freud, Melanie Klein and Anna Freud, whose pioneering and vital work on sibling issues has not been systematically examined before. It also explores the important contributions to our understanding of siblings from developmental research, systemic therapy and attachment theory. Through infant observation and clinical work with children and young people, the book reveals the ways in which sibling relationships can be illuminated by these different perspectives. The book aims to stress the importance of multi-disciplinary thinking and to encourage further an interface between psychoanalytic thinking and other disciplines. It is a must for clinicians and other professionals working with children and families and of interest too to the general reader.

Thinking Space

Paperback – 2013-10-18
Available from Routledge

This book promotes curiosity, exploration and learning about difference by paying as much attention as to how we learn (process) as to what we learn (content). It shares the thinking, experience and learning of staff at the Tavistock Clinic, the premier psychotherapy training institution in the NHS.

Young Child Observation

Paperback – 2013-09-25
Available from Routledge

Observing young children at play is an everyday and often fascinating and pleasurable experience for many of us. It also has a great pedigree in the development of psychoanalysis from Freud's observation of his grandson's game with the cotton-reel onwards. This book describes the practice of observing young children in home and nursery settings in a systematic and non-intrusive way in order to expand our understanding of their emotional, cognitive, and social development. It uses a psychoanalytic lens to enrich the meaning of what is seen. How do minds and personalities take shape? How can we train people to see what is most relevant in helping children to develop? The chapters range from classic papers by famous practitioners of an older generation to observations completed in recent years in the UK, Europe, and the US. Observation of this sort has also spread to Latin America, India, Australia, Africa, and the Far East. The differences and continuities with Infant Observation are the starting point.

Consultations in Dynamic Psychotherapy

Paperback – 2013-07-11
Available from Routledge

Series Editor’s Preface -- Introduction -- Overview -- Frameworks for Practice -- Assessing for psychoanalytic psychotherapy: a historical perspective -- Why assess? Psychoanalytic assessment in the National Health Service -- The Consultation Process -- How to begin? -- Working over -- The close -- The minute particulars -- Special Domains -- Trauma -- Very troubled patients -- Views from Elsewhere -- Research reflections -- Afterthoughts

Living on the Border

Paperback – 2013-05-01
Available from Routledge

This book centres on the problem of psychosis, understood from a psychoanalytic perspective, as it manifests itself in different contexts and different levels of organisation: from the individual psychoanalytic session, through work with couples, groups and institutions and wider levels of social organisation. Beginning with a discussion of the psychoanalytic approach to psychosis centring on the work of Freud, Klein and the Post-Kleinians, it goes on to cover individual, couple and group therapy with psychotic patients. It draws on clinical material and theoretical discussion to explore the links between psychotic processes on different levels. This work is aimed at different professionals working within the psychodynamic frame of reference: individual psychotherapists, couple and family and group psychotherapists; organisational consultants and trainees in different therapies. As well as this it will be a useful resource to nurses, doctors and social workers who work with very disturbed patients and wish to learn about psychotic processes.

Contributors: David Bell, Elizabeth Bott Spillius, Tim Dartington, James Fisher, Caroline Garland, Francis Grier, R.D. Hinshelwood, David Kennard, Julian Lousada, Mary Morgan, Aleksandra Novakovic, Salomon Resnik, Margaret Rustin, Hanna Segal, Wilhelm Skogstad, Margot Waddell

Addictive States of Mind

Paperback – 2013-01-01
Available from Routledge

This chapter, written by a psychiatrist working with people with severe and complex addictions, sets the scene. We are provided with a graphic account of the multiple problems—physical, psychological, social, financial—of someone with severe drug addiction, where sex working and the risks of pregnancy, infection, and assault compound an already challenging presentation. The personal history of trauma and abuse means that the patient requires highly skilled and sensitive management, and adaptations in service provision—such as no morning appointments—that respect the individual’s lifestyle. The conflict for professionals is encapsulated in a brief description of the responses of Vanessa Crawford’s patient group when asked what messages they would like to be conveyed to future doctors: don’t prejudge us, treat us as individuals, give us proper pain control—and “don’t trust us”. Implicit in this is the recognition that they are in the grip of something that leads them to deceive, probably themselves, but also others—a wish to pervert a relationship to someone who is trying to help. Crawford conveys the importance of being knowledgeable, but not omniscient; of helping the individual to overcome the barrier of shame, which may lead to information being withheld; and the crucial contribution of a collaborative and coherent staff team in containing such challenging patients and in helping them to turn a corner towards recovery.

Childhood Depression

Paperback – 2012-12-31
Available from Routledge

This title is based on the results of a project based at the Tavistock Clinic in London which set out to explore whether children and young people aged nine years to fifteen years suffering from depression could be helped using brief focused psychodynamic psychotherapy together with parent work and family therapy. There were also centres in Athens, Greece and Helsinki, Finland, and in this way the clinicians had sufficient subjects from which to compare the interventions and check for any possible cultural differences in the results. Most of the children and young people studied showed a noticeable improvement. The book contains chapters by the clinicians involved describing their work as well as a section containing the scientific papers that emerged from the project. It is hoped that this may encourage the use of similar approaches to working in the field, especially in these days when there is such a demand for psychological therapies.

Waiting To Be Found

Paperback – 2012-09-01
Available from Routledge

Series Editor’s Preface -- Preface -- Foreword -- Introduction -- Canham: Writer and Clinical Thinker -- Focusing on the relationship with the child -- Selected Papers by Hamish Canham -- Growing up in residential care -- The development of the concept of time in fostered and adopted children -- Exporting the Tavistock model to social services: clinical consultative and teaching aspects -- Group and gang states of mind -- The relevance of the Oedipus myth to fostered and adopted children -- Spitting, kicking and stripping: technical difficulties encountered in the treatment of deprived children -- Working with Children in Care -- The expressed wishes and feelings of children -- Innate possibilities: experiences of hope in child psychotherapy -- The riddle of the Sphinx -- Neglect and its effects: understandings from developmental science and the therapist—s countertransference -- Creating a “third position” to explore oedipal dynamics in the task and organization of a therapeutic school -- Facing reality: Oedipus and the organization -- Turning a blind eye or daring to see: how might consultation and clinical interventions help Looked After Children and their carers to cope with mental pain? -- Physical control, strip searching, and segregation: observations on the deaths of children in custody -- Observation, containment, countertransference: the contribution of psychoanalytic thinking to contemporary relationship-based social work practice -- Endpiece -- Publications by Hamish Canham

Engaging with Complexity

Paperback – 2011-12-31
Available from Routledge

Children and young people spend a great deal of their time in schools and other education settings. Consequently those working in such contexts have a huge impact and influence on the development, experiences and thinking of the children and young people with whom they interact. This book represents the richness and variety of ideas shared by some of the contributors to the first European Conference on Child and Adolescent Mental Health in Education Settings, held in Paris in 2005 and hosted by the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. The intention of the event was to gather together child mental health and educational professionals from across Europe to share innovative practice. The success and impact of this conference was such that it became the first of what is now a bi-annual series of events each taking place in a different European city.

Managing Vulnerability

Paperback – 2010-12-31
Available from Routledge

Clinicians, managers and researchers - as well as politicians and religious leaders - are worrying about a lack of compassion and humanity in the care of vulnerable people in society. In this book The author explores the dynamics of care. He argues that we know how to do it, but somehow we seem to keep getting it wrong. Poor care in hospitals and care homes is well documented, and yet it continues. Care for people in their own homes is seen as an ideal, but the reality can be cruel and isolating. The author describes research over forty years in thinking why institutional and community care are both subject to processes of denial and fear of dependency. His examples include children in hospital, people with disabilities living in the community, and the care of older people and those with dementia.

The Groups Book

Paperback – 2010-12-31
Available from Routledge

The Groups Book -- Series Editor’s Preface -- Prologue -- Introduction: groups and groupings -- The Clinical Approach -- What is psychoanalytic about group therapy? -- How does a psychoanalytic group work? -- Destructive processes in analytic groups -- Psychoanalytic group therapy with severely disturbed patients -- The Theoretical Background -- Bion and group psychotherapy: Bion and Foulkes at the Tavistock -- Outcome studies in group psychotherapy -- Group Relations and the Wider World -- Bion’s work group revisited -- The theory and practice of the Group Relations conference -- Applications -- The traumatized group -- Refugees and the development of “emotional capital” in therapy groups -- Psychotic phenomena in large groups -- Some are more equal than others: Oedipus, dominance hierarchies, and the Establishment -- The Groups Manual -- Introduction -- What is psychoanalytic group therapy? -- Aims of treatment -- The therapist’s tools -- The therapist’s tasks and techniques: general -- Starting a group -- The first session -- The management of information -- Group life -- A waiting-list group -- Supervision -- Ending a group

What Can the Matter Be?

Paperback – 2008-12-31
Available from Routledge

This book describes the particular approach to clinical work with under fives that has been developed at the Tavistock Clinic. It sets out new approaches in the understanding and treatment of psychological disturbance in children, adolescents, and adults, both as individual and in families.

Work Discussion

Paperback – 2008-10-29
Available from Routledge

This book provides the history, theory, and practice of work discussion as developed at the Tavistock Clinic. It describes the evolution and contemporary practice of work discussion in relation to a wide range of professional work with children, adolescents, and families.

The Anorexic Mind

Paperback – 2008-01-31
Available from Routledge

Eating disorders vary in severity from developmental difficulties in adolescence which may be transitory, to serious and chronic mental illnesses. The Anorexic Mind offers a coherent approach to these difficult and demanding problems, always underlining the point that while many of the manifestations are physical, eating disorders have the

Looking into Later Life

Paperback – 2007-07-05
Available from Routledge

Eating disorders vary in severity from developmental difficulties in adolescence which may be transitory, to serious and chronic mental illnesses. The Anorexic Mind offers a coherent approach to these difficult and demanding problems, always underlining the point that while many of the manifestations are physical, eating disorders have their origins as well as their solutions, in the mind. While anorexia nervosa may be considered the central syndrome in eating disorders, this book also considers how it links and differs from bulimia nervosa, the more common, related disorder. In the process of the research on anorexia and bulimia, valuable insights have been gained into the very common problem of overeating. The author takes a developmental approach to eating disorders, and is very aware of the continuities between infantile, adolescent and adult experience. Our earliest relationship is a feeding relationship and feeding difficulties early in life are not rare.

The Learning Relationship

Paperback – 2006-12-31
Available from Routledge

Series Editor's Preface -- Preface -- Looking into Later Life -- Introduction -- Overview: Past and Present -- Developments in psychoanalytic thinking and in therapeutic attitudes and services -- Mainly Depression -- The metapsychology of depression -- Assessment -- Individual psychotherapy -- Couples psychotherapy: separateness or separation? An account of work with a couple entering later life -- "Tragical–comical–historical–pastoral": groups and group therapy in the third age -- The experience of an illness: the resurrection of an analysis in the work of recovery -- Observation and Consultation -- Psychodynamic observation and old age -- Consultation at work -- Where angels fear to tread: idealism, despondency, and inhibition in thought in hospital nursing -- Mainly Dementia -- Only connect—the links between early and later life -- No truce with the furies: issues of containment in the provision of care for people with dementia and those who care for them -- Facts, phenomenology, and psychoanalytic contributions to dementia care -- The pink ribbon -- Caring for a relative with dementia—who is the sufferer? -- My unfaithful brain—a journey into Alzheimer’s Disease -- Conveying the experience of Alzheimer’s Disease through art: the later paintings of William Utermohlen

Borderline Welfare

Paperback – 2005-12-31
Available from Routledge

Creating New Families is intended to reflect the practice of the specialist, multi-disciplinary Fostering and Adoption team in the Child and Family Department of the Tavistock Clinic. The team is firmly rooted in an approach which values inter-disciplinary working for the contribution which the thinking of each discipline makes to the overall endeavour with the child and family. It also places great importance on multi-agency collaboration, especially with social services and education, without which no intervention with this group of children can succeed. The book represents the differing ways in which members contribute to the work of the team, with individual and joint accounts by clinicians of the ways in which their therapeutic practice has evolved and about the theoretical thinking on which it is based.

Organization in the Mind

Paperback – 2005-12-31
Available on Routledge

The author has been a leading figure internationally in the fields of organizational consultancy and group relations for many years. Robert French and Russ Vince have gathered together, for the first time, his key writings in this area. This is essential reading for managers and leaders, as well as organizational consultants, academics and students of organizations. Part of the Tavistock Clinic Series.

Reflecting on Reality

Paperback – 2005-12-31
Available from Routledge

Primary care and psychotherapy are in some ways worlds apart. Yet both deal with the same human fundamentals: birth, and death, hope and disappointment, identity and uncertainty. This innovative book looks at how psychotherapists can make use of their skills in primary care. It examines how therapists, family physicians and other primary care professionals can all learn from each other through clinical collaboration. Each chapter describes a different practical approach to joint working in a range of primary care settings, across the life cycle. Specific topics include services for children and adolescents, working with immigrants, and live supervision. All the authors are connected with the Tavistock Clinic, and are psychotherapists or family physicians. The book challenges psychotherapists and those who work in primary care to develop closer working relationships, so that they can deliver more effective and more equitable services.

Paperback – 2004-12-31
Available on Routledge

Oedipus and the Couple

This title consists of a diverse series of contributions and reflections on couples and the Oedipus complex from leading psychotherapists and psychoanalysts in the couples field. All contributors base their theories on a contemporary Kleinian/object-relations psychoanalytic viewpoint and this helps the reader feel that there is a basic underlying unity to facilitate meaningful links between the ideas and themes in different chapters. The chapters have been organized into three sections. Whilst united in the focus on the Oedipus situation, the individual styles and voices of the authors are very varied. The first three chapters are primarily theoretical. The second section comprises chapters that make use of artistic and cultural themes from the worlds of literature and film to explore Oedipal couple issues. The final section consists of chapters that are specifically clinical in their focus. The manifest focus in most chapters is on the couple, but there are variations on this theme.

Unexpected Gains

Paperback – 2004-12-31
Available from Routledge

Psychoanalytic psychotherapy is a new development in the treatment of people with learning disabilities and mental health problems, which traditionally has utilised behavioural management and limited counselling. The papers collected here have evolved from the work of the pioneering Learning Disabilities Service at the Tavistock Clinic, London, which is made up from specialised professionals from the fields of psychology, psychiatry, child and adolescent psychotherapy, adult psychotherapy and social work. The service mainly offers individual psychotherapy but also provides group work, parent work, family therapy and consultative work with professionals where necessary.

Working Below the Surface

Paperback – 2004-12-31
Available from Routledge

The chapters contributed to this book have been written by the staff and associates of The Tavistock Consultancy Service, whose distinctive competence is in the human dimension of enterprise and the dynamics of the workplace. The intention is to identify and explore some of the key themes that have emerged, such as the emotional world of the organisation and the dynamics of resistance to change, and how these affect and influence the understanding of leadership and management in contemporary organizations. No attempt is made to reach a consensus, but rather to raise and map out a territory of continuing question and debate. Contributors:David Armstrong; Andrew Cooper; Tim Dartington; William Halton; Sharon Horowitz; Linda Hoyle; Clare Huffington; Kim James; Sarah Miller; Anton Obholzer; Jane Pooley; and Nick Temple. Part of the Tavistock Clinic Series.

Acquainted with the Night

Paperback – 2003-12-31
Available from Routledge

This book explores some of the ways in which an understanding of poetry, and the poetic impulse, can be fruitfully informed by psychoanalytic ideas. It could be argued that there is a particular affinity between poetry and psychoanalysis, in that both pay close attention to the precise meanings of linguistic expression, and both, though in different ways, are centrally concerned with unconscious processes. The contributors to this volume, nearly all of them clinicians with a strong interest in literature, explore this connection in a variety of ways, focusing on the work of particular poets, from the prophet Ezekiel to Seamus Heaney.


Sent Before My Time

Paperback – 2003-12-31
Available from Routledge

Sent Before My Time is an exploration of the workings of a neo natal intensive care unit from a child psychotherapist's point of view. It examines the relationships between the babies, the parents and the staff.

Inside Lives

Paperback – 2002-12-31
Available from Routledge

This second edition of the remarkable Inside Lives (expanded with a chapter on the last years of the life cycle) provides a perspective on the relationship between psychoanalytic theory and the nature of human development. Following the major developmental phases from infancy to old age, the author lucidly explores the vital aspects of experience which promote mental and emotional growth and those which impede it. In bringing together a wide range of clinical, non-clinical and literary examples, it offers a detailed and accessible introduction to contemporary psychoanalytic thought and provides a personal and vivid approach to the elusive question of how the personality develops.


Surviving Space

Paperback – 2002-12-31
Available from Routledge

Surviving Space is a collection of papers on infant observation and related issues by contemporary experts in the field, commemorating the centenary of Esther Bick and the unique contribution she has made to psychoanalytic theory. As part of the prestigious Tavistock Clinic Series, this is an essential addition to this highly-valued and innovative series. Infant observation is crucial to most psychotherapy training, and this work would be of obvious value to those commencing their training, as well as valuable insights for all psychotherapists.

Understanding Trauma

Paperback – 2002-12-31
Available from Routledge

Revised edition with additional chapter. This book, from the Tavistock Clinic Series, is about what follows the breakdown in functioning, either short or longer-term, provoked by a traumatic event. The authors offer a psychoanalytical understanding of the meaning of the trauma for an individual, illuminating theory with detailed clinical illustration and case histories. A range of therapeutic procedures is described. Major disasters draw attention forcibly to their effects on the survivors. Less often recognised are the long-term after-effects of the huge number and variety of more private events, either accidental or deliberately inflicted, on an individual's subsequent emotional and working life. This book is about what follows the breakdown in functioning, either short or longer-term, provoked by a traumatic event. What is distinctive about this book is that its authors offer a psychoanalytical understanding of the meaning of the trauma for an individual, illuminating theory with detailed clinical illustration and case histories.

Mirror to Nature

Paperback – 2002-12-31
Available from Routledge

This book brings the insights of psychoanalysis to bear on drama in the western dramatic tradition. Plays which are discussed in detail include works by Shakespeare, Ibsen, Chekhov, Wilde, and Beckett among others. The authors seek to show that the subtle understanding of conscious and unconscious emotions achieved by psychoanalytic practice can bring new ways of understanding classic works of drama. The argument of the book, set out in its introduction and exemplified in its discussion of individual dramatists and plays, is that western drama has represented the central tensions of societies as crises in the relationships of gender and generation, through dramatic explorations of the inner life of families. This is the common theme which links the book's analysis of Medea, Macbeth and A Midsummer Night's Dream amongst others. The value of this book lies in the originality of its analysis of individual plays, and the subtlety with which it brings psychoanalytic and sociological insights together.

Therapeutic Care for Refugees

Paperback – 2002-12-31
Available from Routledge

This volume addresses the complexities involved in attending to the mental health of refugees. It covers theory and research as well as clinical and field applications, emphasising the psychotherapeutic perspective. It explores the delicate balance between accepting the resilience of refugees whilst not neglecting their psychological needs, within a framework that avoids pathologising their condition. Moreover, it deals with the difficulties in delineating the various relevant intersecting perspectives to the refugee reality, e.g. psychological, socio-political, legal, organisational and ethical. The book introduces important considerations about the actual psychotherapy with refugees (in individual, family and group settings) but in addition, it encourages the introduction of therapeutic elements to all types of work with refugees. Thus, it argues for the necessity of approaching every facet of the refugee experience from a therapeutic perspective; this is why the title refers to therapeutic care rather than to psychotherapy.

Assessment in Child Psychotherapy

Paperback – 2000-12-31
Available from Routledge

This book describes an approach to children and young people who might be helped by child psychotherapy. Attention is paid to factors within the child's personality, to strengths and impediments in the developmental process, and to the family and wider school and community context. Individual chapters address both clinical methods and a variety of clinical problems, including work with very young children and their parents, severe deprivation and family breakdown, developmental delay, and the more serious psychological illnesses of childhood. Assessment in Child Psychotherapy is a significant contribution to all mental health professionals who need to be able to identify the precise nature of a child, adolescent or family's problems and to offer the most appropriate help. Such a book is long overdue. It spans a range of thinking about how best to reach those whose emotional and behavioural difficulties pose challenging questions as to the most suitable forms of treatment.

Psychoanalysis and Culture

Paperback – 1999-12-31
Available from Routledge

Epigram -- Preface -- Foreword -- Introduction -- Art and Literature -- ‘Primal Grief’ and ‘Petrified Rage’ -- Death by Daydreaming -- The Singing Detective -- Turning A Blind Eye -- Mind and Society -- Psychoanalysis -- Emotion and the Malformation of Emotion -- Pride -- Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Migration -- ‘In My End is My Beginning’ – T.S. Eliot -- A Psychoanalyst’s Look at a Hypnotist -- Select Bibliography of the Work of Hanna Segal


Facing It Out

Paperback – 1998-12-31
Available from Routledge

Based on the wealth of experience gathered in the forty years of the life of the Adolescent Department at the Clinic, this covers a full range of clinical work with some of the most difficult areas of adolescence, but it also gives a conceptual framework of normal adolescence and traces the difficulties that arise when this goes wrong. Facing It Out presents new work which has not previously been fully described. The book will be vital reading for clinicians whose work includes work with adolescents. The Adolescent Department of the Tavistock Clinic in its long history has been engaging with young people and their families when the strains prove too great. In this book, staff of the Adolescent Dept examine in accessible language different clinical aspects of adolescent disturbance, exploring in particular the impact on the family. The chapters look at a range of severity of disturbance from adjustment crises to anorexia nervosa and psychosis as well as aspects of adolescent development in small families and in the formation of a sense of identity. With the exception of infancy, adolescence is the most radical of all developmental periods.

Multiple Voices

Paperback - 1997-12-31
Available from Routledge

Part of the Tavistock Clinic Series, this book focuses on narrative and stories in Family Systems Therapy - particularly on how stories develop within the domain of a therapist's own theoretical, clinical and professional contexts. The aim is to allow the reader to understand the uses of stories in family therapy.This book offers a comprehensive overview of issues related to narrative which appear in a family therapy setting. Originally embarking on a joint project to share clinical experience, members of the Family Systems Group at the Tavistock Clinic discovered that what was common in their work was their emphasis on narrative. This discovery led in time to the development of a shared discourse about their diverse approaches to narrative which are carefully reflected in the contributions in this volume. Part One sets out the context of narrative with contributions on bilingualism and the family's experience of therapy, ending with a thought provoking critique of narrative. Part Two concentrates on applications of these ideas, providing analysis of multiple narratives in illness and loss, gender and language, neonatal care, adoption, divorce and refugee families.

Reason and Passion

Paperback - 1997-12-31
Available from Routledge

Preface -- Foreword -- Introductory Essay -- Symbol Formation and Creativity -- Unprovoked Assaults -- Putting the Boot In -- Meaning and Meaningfulness -- Expiation As a Defence -- On Remembering, Repeating and Working Through -- Blocked Introjection/Blocked Incorporation -- Enclaves and Excursions -- ‘Where There Is No Vision’ -- Select Bibliography of the Work of Hanna Segal

All titles in the Tavistock Clinic Series are available to order from Routledge