Dissenting colleagues; power, alienation, vulnerability

Abstract

In this article I explore conscious and unconscious dynamics in relation to questions of power and vulnerability which frequently permeate relationships between psychoanalytic colleagues. Such dynamics have frequently led to splits in psychoanalytic training institutions. I focus particularly on the anxieties, rivalries, and alliances emergent in relationships between psychoanalytic colleagues in the UK between 1934 and 1945. I highlight how the transgenerational transmission of these dynamics has continued to affect the development of psychoanalytic organisations in the UK contemporaneously. I argue that attention to our own and to our colleagues’ vulnerabilities is generative of productive, creative and mutually enhancing professional relationships which allow for critical questioning and differences. Such attention is crucial for psychoanalytic practices if we are to enable our patients to discover the power of their own independent voices. It is also vital for the development and survival of psychoanalytic psychotherapy in the current political climate.

Keywords:

• Psychoanalytic
• training
• organisations
• dynamics
• power
• vulnerability

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mary Lynne Ellis

Mary Lynne Ellis is in private practice as a relational psychoanalytic/phenomenological psychotherapist in North London. She is a training analyst and a supervisor. With over 30 years’ clinical experience, including in the NHS and the voluntary sector, she has taught on art therapy and psychotherapy trainings in Britain and Ireland. In the 1990s she established and worked as a co-therapist in a therapeutic community. She has lectured widely on the relevance of modern European philosophy to relational analytical practices in the UK and in Chile. She has particularly focused on questions of language, identity, and embodiment in relation to experiences of marginalisation and discrimination. Her publications include Time in Practice: Analytical Perspectives on the Times of Our Lives (Karnac, 2008) and, co-authored with Noreen O’Connor, Questioning Identities; Philosophy in Psychoanalytic Practice (Karnac, 2010). She is also a practising artist.