Exploring Psychoanalytic Concepts through Culture, the Arts and Contemporary Life Learning from Observation and Experience

Introduction

Part I: Learning through infant observation

1. Teaching infant observation

Barbara Segal

2. Sam: Observations and reflections on the first eighteen months of life

Jenny Abbott

3. An exploration of a nursery song “The Police Dog” as a container

Tsutomu Ichige

4. “Mother-less”: a psychoanalytic observation of an installation by Cathy Wilkes

Dee Ingham

5. The is-ness of things: reflections on observation used in contexts where words are hard to find

Olivia Sagan

Part II: Poetry

6. "This is not for tears: thinking"—poetry and psychoanalysis in orbit

Judith Edwards

7. "Of Mutability", mourning, and containment

Anne Kane

8. Resistance through mourning: a poem by Mahmoud Darwish “In Her Absence I Created Her Image”

Elina Matter

Part III: Literature and the performing arts

9. The teaching of drama, psychoanalysis, and society on the Psychoanalytic Studies course

Michael Rustin

10. Rockaby: Eros and Thanatos

Maryam Ghasemi

11.The narcissistic world of Turandot

Tomaso Quaini

12. Identity, identification, and narcissistic phantasy in the novels of Kazuo Ishiguro

Diana Webster Thomas

Part IV: Contempoary life

13. Psy’s “Gentleman”: between the ugly and the beautiful

Yong Suk Lee

14. Living the dream: a psychoanalytic exploration of the sport of BASE jumping

Gabrielle Smith

15. The hidden inner world of littering

Leila Taheri

16. Beyond competence in social work: where are we now?

Clare Parkinson

Afterword

Margaret Lush

Biography

Dr Margaret Lush trained as a child and adolescent psychotherapist at the Tavistock and has worked in clinical and educational settings. She has taught on several Tavistock courses and is currently Joint Course Lead for the Tavistock pre-clinical training course for child psychotherapists. She works in private practice and supervises in Britain and abroad.

Kate Robertson trained as a child and adolescent psychotherapist at the Tavistock and became Head of Child Psychotherapy in Hammersmith and Fulham CAMHS, Course Lead for the Tavistock Psychoanalytic Studies course, and Chair of the Association of Child Psychotherapists. She had to retire early because of health concerns and passed away in October 2023.

'How might psychoanalytic ideas and thinking enhance our understanding and engagement with the creative arts and contemporary life?  Based on the work of the longstanding Psychoanalytic Studies Course at the Tavistock Clinic, this book provides a surprisingly fresh approach to exploring this question.

Rarely have I read a book that so captured my imagination – exposing me to new and unexpected topics such as base jumping or the inner world of littering and to such culturally diverse subjects as a moving Palestinian poem or a chart-topping Korean pop video. Drawing on their experience of close observation of infants and psychoanalytic theory, the contributors to this book delve deep, eliciting the reader’s engagement.

I loved it! It is relevant and accessible to anyone interested in thinking more deeply about complex states of mind and the world we live in.'

Dr. Debbie Hindle, child and adolescent psychotherapist, Human Development Scotland

'This book illustrates how psychoanalytical skills developed through the experience of infant observation can be used in many cultural contexts from poetry and opera to music videos, extreme sports and social work. The idea that artists and imaginative writers are primary researchers into the mind, exploring psychic change, is held in focus throughout.

The use of material from infant observations is moving and non-judgmental, clearly showing how the inner world of the observer is affected by the experience of observation. The book explores the value and use of these affective responses to further our understanding of human interaction and cultural experience, as well as offer pointers for how individuals and organizations can foster self-reflective practice, consider anti-oppressive approaches, face our own racism, shift from tracking achievement of competence to understanding the process of learning with all its uncertainties and anxieties.

This is important reading for those working in public and private sectors'

Susanne Lansman, PhD, poet, and fellow of British Psychoanalytical Society.