The Unhoused Mind - Psychic homelessness and the analytic frame

‘…the house a substitute for the womb - one’s first dwelling place, probably still longed for, where one was safe and felt so comfortable’.  (Freud, S. 1930 Civilisation and its Discontents)

Homelessness can be a concrete and a psychic state - descriptive of estrangement and a lack of containment - and both states are sometimes closely entwined in each other.

Using clinical material our speakers will explore different aspects of the concept from a psychodynamic perspective - from Adlam and Scanlon’s suggestion that, ‘Homelessness is….both a symptom and a communication of unhoused and dismembered states of mind’, to Robin Anderson’s examination of the analytic frame and its crucial importance in work with patients and clients.

Marcus Evans

Marcus Evans will speak on:  ‘ Being Driven Mad: Understanding Borderline and other disturbed states of mind’.  Working with people in borderline and psychotic states of mind presents the psychotherapist, counsellor or mental health professional with serious challenges. Therapists and mental health professionals often describe the way patients in these states of mind  'get  under their skin' and powerful feelings can be evoked in the counter transference. This seminar will outline a model for understanding and working these states of mind therapeutically.