Paper Announcement by Mary Lynne Ellis (UK)

Dissenting Colleagues; Power, Alienation, Vulnerability

(2020). Psychodynamic Practice, 26(2):124-135.

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 themes emergent in Wright’s play, Mrs. Klein (2009), and in The Freud-Klein Controversies 1941–1945 (eds. King and Steiner, 2001), highlighting how transgenerationally transmitted anxieties, rivalries and alliances revealed in these texts can continue to affect relationships with colleagues contemporaneously. I argue that attention to our own and our colleagues’ vulnerabilities generates 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.

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14753634.2020.1745677

Mary Lynne Ellis, MA
London, UK
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