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