An hospitable engagement? Open-door psychotherapy with the socially excluded

Brown, Gabrielle; Kainth, Kamal; Matheson, Catherine; Osborne, Jake; Trenkle, Anja; Adlam, John

doi:10.1080/14753634.2011.587605

Cited by 14 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…But, as I have argued here and explored with colleagues elsewhere (Brown et al, 2011), dynamics of exclusion are played out within systems which are highly ambivalent about the 'inclusion' that they ostensibly offer. Malodorousness is especially significant in this context, because responses to it concretely mark out the limits of universal principles of hospitality and tolerance.…”

Section: Systems In Flightmentioning

confidence: 91%

Psychotherapy with people who smell

Brown¹

2015

Psychoanal Cult Soc

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This paper stems from psychotherapy work with patients who 'neglect personal hygiene' in homelessness and chronic mental health settings, and consultancy to staff groups tasked with patients' 'social inclusion'. Psychoanalytic theory has largely eschewed exploring internal psychic states communicated by odour and, equally, the meaning of marked societal hostility towards malodorous individuals. The paper looks at historical and anthropological notions of 'dirt' and the construction of the 'unwashed' as a social category in the formation of bourgeois society. Psychoanalytic ideas of unconscious bodily and psychic communication are described. Case examples explore how troubled relations between body and mind result from early abuse/neglect, where the internal world is suffocated by trauma and 'dread' which cannot be contained and processed. From a psychosocial perspective, taking up a role as 'unacceptable' is the paradoxical condition of belonging for many members of the social whole. The paper suggests that invasive smell confronts us with our repressed knowledge of that which is 'rotten' in the emotional and sociopolitical environment in which 'the unwashed' exist. An example from organisational consultancy traces profound disturbance in institutional dynamics that occurs when the malodorous individual seeks to claim shared social resources. The author questions the prevalent view that 'being smelly' is an attempt to withdraw from social and psychic contact, rather than a meaningful communication which is within the scope of psychoanalytic thought to understand.

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Section: Systems In Flightmentioning

confidence: 91%

Psychotherapy with people who smell

Brown¹

2015

Psychoanal Cult Soc

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“…They carry with them a longing to rediscover the psychic and interpersonal, familial and communal home that they lost, or never experienced, whilst simultaneously they are fearful of and dreading what might consume them if they did (Meltzer, 1992;Glasser, 1996;Scanlon and Adlam, 2008Brown et al, 2012). Viewed from this perspective, reflexive violence is both an attempt to come to terms with the loss of a historical and metaphorical 'home' and an attempt to find 'shelter' or 'temporary housing' in the violent act.…”

Section: Insult and Injury: Reflexive And Reciprocal Violencementioning

confidence: 97%

Reflexive violence

Scanlon¹,

Adlam

2013

Psychoanal Cult Soc

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In this article we build on a previous work to develop a critique of the notion of the supposedly deliberate or intentional quality of acts of self-harm and selfneglect. We suggest the term reflexive violence as a way to understand how some of us harm or neglect our-selves and become 'identified' as casualties (though not necessarily victims) of processes of inclusion/exclusion, oppression and colonisation played out between in-groups and socially constructed out-groups. We deploy this construct of reflexive violence to review shifting attitudes toward what constitutes deviance from the norm in modern societies, particularly the social and historical fluidities in the contested definitions of 'personality disorder' reflected in the American Psychiatric Association's periodic redrafting and updating of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. We also draw on philosophical, sociological and historical sources to develop a psychosocial and systems-psychodynamic commentary on discourses of power whose modalities of domination may be perceived in this violent attribution of intent into the excluded out-group.

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“…18 Further, there is temptation to further avoid reality by constructing a 'self-assigned impossible task'. To help requires a capacity for empathy; to stand momentarily in the other's shoes and experience their pain using what we have learned as a guide as to how best to respond.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In an extraordinary pilot project, the UK Cabinet Office were tasked to explore alternative approaches towards the chronically homeless. 18 One project involved 25 sessions of a psychodynamically orientated psychotherapy to a group of people who were “too chaotic, too unwell or simply too out of their minds to benefit from conventional stand alone therapy and who were batted from one service to another”. The authors noted the tension that exists between the genuine wish to help and the hostility at being expected to do so with clients who were unlikely to make use of therapy.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Whilst we may wish to include everyone, this is dishonest, for hospitality is only possible when offered by a host who is master in his or her home and who already sets a limit on what is offered; “…however hospitable we might claim to be, crossing the threshold would always involve a submission to our house rules”. 18 Further, there is temptation to further avoid reality by constructing a ‘self-assigned impossible task’. To help requires a capacity for empathy; to stand momentarily in the other’s shoes and experience their pain using what we have learned as a guide as to how best to respond.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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