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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.

Professor Joy Schaverien 

Boarding School Syndrome: Broken Attachments a Hidden Trauma

In her new book Prof Schaverien identifies a cluster of symptoms and behaviours, which she proposes be classified as ‘Boarding School Syndrome’.  Children sent to boarding school at an early age suffer the sudden and irrevocable, loss of their primary attachments; for many this constitutes a significant trauma.  Bullying and sexual abuse may follow, rendering new attachment figures unsafe.  To adapt to the system, a defensive and protective encapsulation of the self may be acquired; the true identity of the person then remains hidden.  This pattern may continue into adult life, distorting intimate relationships.  In psychotherapy the transference dynamics may replay the hidden childhood trauma of repeated losses.  This illustrated talk will explain how this calls for a particular psychotherapeutic approach.