The analyst’s witnessing and otherness

Poland, Warren S.; Cornell, William F.; Chodorow, Nancy J.

doi:10.4324/9781315104720-3

Cited by 19 publications

(22 citation statements)

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“…Dialogue can change the dynamic of community engagement. However, the full alignment of the goals of differing constituencies may not always be possible, due the complex interaction between the multiple positions and understandings of stakeholders that are involved and the need to respect the other’s autonomy [ 99 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improving access to mental health care in an Orthodox Jewish community: a critical reflection upon the accommodation of otherness

McEvoy

Williamson

Kada

et al. 2017

BMC Health Serv Res

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BackgroundThe English National Health Service (NHS) has significantly extended the supply of evidence based psychological interventions in primary care for people experiencing common mental health problems. Yet despite the extra resources, the accessibility of services for ‘under-served’ ethnic and religious minority groups, is considerably short of the levels of access that may be necessary to offset the health inequalities created by their different exposure to services, resulting in negative health outcomes. This paper offers a critical reflection upon an initiative that sought to improve access to an NHS funded primary care mental health service to one ‘under-served’ population, an Orthodox Jewish community in the North West of England.MethodsA combination of qualitative and quantitative data were drawn upon including naturally occurring data, observational notes, e-mail correspondence, routinely collected demographic data and clinical outcomes measures, as well as written feedback and recorded discussions with 12 key informants.ResultsImprovements in access to mental health care for some people from the Orthodox Jewish community were achieved through the collaborative efforts of a distributed leadership team. The members of this leadership team were a self-selecting group of stakeholders which had a combination of local knowledge, cultural understanding, power to negotiate on behalf of their respective constituencies and expertise in mental health care. Through a process of dialogic engagement the team was able to work with the community to develop a bespoke service that accommodated its wish to maintain a distinct sense of cultural otherness.ConclusionsThis critical reflection illustrates how dialogic engagement can further the mechanisms of candidacy, concordance and recursivity that are associated with improvements in access to care in under-served sections of the population, whilst simultaneously recognising the limits of constructive dialogue. Dialogue can change the dynamic of community engagement. However, the full alignment of the goals of differing constituencies may not always be possible, due the complex interaction between the multiple positions and understandings of stakeholders that are involved and the need to respect the other’-s’ autonomy.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12913-017-2509-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improving access to mental health care in an Orthodox Jewish community: a critical reflection upon the accommodation of otherness

McEvoy

Williamson

Kada

et al. 2017

BMC Health Serv Res

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“…The treatment of trauma requires therapists to become witnesses (Ullman, ), i.e. to see the traumatic events, recognize them and be in touch with them (Poland, ), and to subsequently express them in words and conceptualize them (Stolorow, ). This process answers the experiences that traumatic memories are often left unattached to any imagistic or linguistic form (Wigren, ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Poverty‐aware social work practice: service users' perspectives

Saar-Heiman

Lavie-Ajayi

Krumer-Nevo

2016

Child & Family Social Work

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In recent years, there has been an increase in scholarly writing on the theory and practice of critical social work with people living in poverty. Yet there is a lack of research on the experiences and perspectives of service users regarding this kind of practice. This paper presents a qualitative study that explored the practice of a special poverty‐aware social work programme in Israel, through the experiences of women who took part in it. Using an interpretative interactionist approach, in‐depth interviews with nine women were held three times over a 2‐year period. Findings reveal a high degree of satisfaction with the programme on the part of the women. The satisfaction was derived from four main experiences: the experience of visibility, the experience of the active partnership in the fight against poverty, the experience of close, hierarchy‐challenging relationships, and the experience of responsiveness to material and emotional needs. The findings are discussed in terms of three principles of practice: intervention in a real‐life context, relationship‐based intervention and the focus on both the material and emotional needs and their fulfilment.

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“…By implicitly conveying to the artist that she had talent and explicitly assisting her with tasks that furthered her emergence and visibility in the world, Carr’s creative partners supplied a selfobject and real object relationship that attenuated her psychopathology. Biographical evidence also indicates that Harris and Dilworth understood Carr’s psychological needs and were active interpreters of her experience of herself, extending the usually conceived role of the essential other to one more akin to the “gold standard” of analysis wherein insight and establishment of personal narrative are paramount in fostering developmental progression (Poland, 2000 ; Stein et al, 2000 ; Abend, 2001 ). These particular psychotherapeutic functions may serve a universal need in individuals that lead to reintegration of thought and feeling, as aspect of the experience with one’s essential others of which one may not be consciously attuned but are decisive in its function.…”

Section: Discussion: the Essential Other In Psychoanalysis And Psychomentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Dilworth served as an essential other of a different order, more closely aligned to the psychotherapist, because he was privy to Carr’s personal history as she recollected and recreated it in her writings. By non-judgmentally listening to her narrative, Dilworth was a “witness” to her internal experience, in the manner Poland ( 2000 ) describes as paramount to therapeutic action because he was “present” with her during her recounting and could bear her intense affect states as none had heretofore been privy to.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Essential Others and Spontaneous Recovery in the Life and Work of Emily Carr: Implications for Understanding Remission of Illness and Resilience

Zerbe

2015

International Journal of Psychoanalytic Self Psychology

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Artist Emily Carr 1A majority of paintings by Emily Carr are in the permanent collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery. Others may be viewed in the National Gallery of Ontario and the British Columbia Archives in Victoria, BC. They are also available as photographed reproductions on the web at vancouverartgallery.bc.ca. 1 (1871–1945) has attained iconic status in Canada and throughout the world for her prodigious output as a painter and writer of the Pacific Northwest. This article describes how the arrival of three “essential others” at pivotal moments in middle life helped lift Carr out of a serious, lifelong depression and nurtured and inspired her creative output. I propose that Carr’s productivity and psychological recovery were facilitated by sequential, cumulative input from these generative human contacts. The creative partnership formed between an artist and her muse has features akin to the patient/therapist dyad, ranging from sparking new and healthier adaptations, to reshaping the internal landscape via internalization, to facilitation and promotion of unique talent. This psychobiographical study of Emily Carr is a vehicle for clinicians to further contemplate elements imbedded in our daily work that give rise to greater resilience, spontaneous recovery from illness, and personal transformation in the lives of our patients.

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The analyst’s witnessing and otherness

Cited by 19 publications

References 0 publications

Improving access to mental health care in an Orthodox Jewish community: a critical reflection upon the accommodation of otherness

Improving access to mental health care in an Orthodox Jewish community: a critical reflection upon the accommodation of otherness

Poverty‐aware social work practice: service users' perspectives

Essential Others and Spontaneous Recovery in the Life and Work of Emily Carr: Implications for Understanding Remission of Illness and Resilience

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