New Horizons in Forensic Psychotherapy: Exploring the Work of Estela V. Welldon, edited by the author, contains many rich contributions by some of Welldon's most distinguished former students and proteges. The book consists of important chapters on the creative ways in which colleagues have utilised and expanded upon Welldon's work in the field of forensic psychotherapy in a variety of settings, including in hospitals, prisons, community mental health clinics, and, also, in private practice.
Intellectual Disability and Psychotherapy: The Theories, Practice and Influence of Valerie Sinason charts the transformative impact of the noted psychotherapist’s work with children and adults with intellectual disabilities upon both a generation of clinicians and the treatment and services delivered by them. Examining how contemporary Disability Therapists have discovered, used and adapted such pioneering concepts as the Handicapped Smile and Secondary Handicap as a Defence Against Trauma in their clinical work, the book includes contributions from renowned practitioners and clinicians from around the world. It shines a light on how Sinason’s work opened doors for working with people who were previously thought of as unreachable. Intellectual Disability and Psychotherapy will be an essential resource to anyone working with children or adults with disabilities, as well as psychotherapists interested in exploring Valerie Sinason’s work.
How do you develop a truly rich and rewarding career in psychotherapy? How can you find joy in such painful work? How do you develop your skills in the field? How can you conquer your creative inhibitions? In short, how do you flourish as a psychotherapist? Brett Kahr answers these questions, and so many more, in his brilliant new book, painting a frank portrait of the life of the psychotherapist. Taking the reader through the life cycle of the therapist, he offers lots of practical advice, from assessing one’s suitability for the career, to managing one’s finances, to preparing for death. Kahr has produced a must-read, gripping account of how you can thrive in every respect in this complex and rewarding career. How to Flourish as a Psychotherapist should be required reading for every therapist, anyone considering taking up the career, and everyone who has ever wondered what kind of person becomes a therapist.
Forensic Psychoanalysis examines the traumatic psychological origins of violence and explores the ways in which such disasters can be prevented and treated. The book encapsulates Professor Brett Kahr’s lengthy career in the field of forensic mental health, investigating all aspects of this vital arena, from the history of criminality to the current-day application of psychoanalysis and psychodynamic psychotherapy to the care of rapists, arsonists, genital exhibitionists, paedophiles, and murderers. This gripping text surveys more than one century of literature on the psychotherapeutic treatment of the criminally insane and provides tremendous insight into how mental health professionals can contribute to the reduction of global violence. Forensic Psychoanalysis will be crucial for all readers interested in both the prevention of criminality and its psychological treatment.
Although Professor Kahr spends most of his week facilitating traditional psychoanalytical sessions with his patients, in his spare time he has had many professional adventures outside the consulting room, broadcasting as Resident Psychotherapist for the B.B.C., lecturing about the intimacies of couple psychodynamics on the stage of the Royal Opera House, and defending “Lady Macbeth” in a murder trial at the Royal Courts of Justice in conjunction with members of the Royal Shakespeare Company. In this compellingly written and unputdownable book, Kahr shares his wealth of adventures both inside the consulting room and in the wider cultural sphere, disseminating psychoanalytical ideas more broadly. The book suggests that the “traditionalist” and the “maverick” aspects of the practising clinician can exist side by side in a fruitful collaboration. These adventures will encourage those embarking upon their first steps in the helping professions to entertain more creative ways of working.
In this compellingly written and meticulously researched new book, Professor Brett Kahr draws upon extensive unpublished archival sources and upon his four decades of oral history interviews to paint fascinating portraits of many of the icons of mental health. Unearthing Freud's Death Bed and Laing's Missing Tooth: Hidden Histories of British Psychoanalysis includes detailed accounts of Kahr's interviews with such noted figures as Enid Balint, Marion Milner, Ronald Laing, John Bowlby and his wife, Ursula Longstaff Bowlby, as well as numerous members of Donald Winnicott's family. Framed as a series of glimpses into the early history of British psychoanalysis, Kahr explores how the German-speaking Sigmund Freud learned how to psychoanalyse English-speaking patients; how Enid Eichholz (the future wife of Michael Balint) pioneered couple psychoanalysis in the wake of the Second World War; how Donald Winnicott treated "The Piggle" in the midst of his own health crises; and how Masud Khan degenerated from a clinical sage into an anti-Semite. A breathtaking combination of interviews, reminiscences, and well-documented scholarship, this book provides a gripping overview of many of the key figures in British psychoanalysis, all of whom made unparalleled contributions to the mental health profession, and whose lives and careers deserve to be visited and revisited.
How to Be Intimate with 15,000,000 Strangers is an investigation into how the fields of mental health and media can work together more collaboratively. Drawing upon his extensive experience in media psychoanalysis, Brett Kahr explores how a rich collaboration with radio, television, film, and other forms of public outreach can be accomplished while also embracing the weight and gravitas of depth psychology. In addition to describing his work as Resident Psychotherapist at the B.B.C., Kahr also examines the ways in which references to the media enter the consulting room and provide clinicians with important insights about hidden aspects of the minds of their patients. Moreover, he investigates the historical hesitancy of psychoanalysts – experts in confidentiality – to engage with such a public arena as the media, thus providing important insights about how one can collaborate broadly and loudly while also maintaining one’s ethical commitment to silence and privacy. This book will be of interest to psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, and anyone intrigued by the intersection between media and psychoanalysis.
HMP Holloway was the largest women’s prison in Europe, historically holding numerous infamous female criminals and eliciting intrigue and fascination from the public. The End of the Sentence: Psychotherapy with Female Offenders documents the rich and varied psychotherapeutic work undertaken by dedicated specialists in this intense and often difficult environment, where attempts to provide psychological security were often undermined by conflicting ideas of physical security. Women commit crime most often in the context of poverty, addiction and transgenerational violence or trauma, familial cycles of offending and imprisonment which are often overlooked. Using personal testimony and case studies, and screened through the lens of psychoanalytic theory, the book examines the enduring therapeutic and relational endeavour to find connection, closure and to experience a "good enough" ending with prisoners when the possibility of a positive new beginning often seemed remote. It also considers how the cultural and political discourse remains hostile towards women who are incarcerated, and how this may have culminated in the closure of the only female prison in London. Through insightful real-life accounts, this insightful book also emphasizes the importance of professionals finding ways of supporting one another to offer women who have entered the criminal justice system a way to leave it. It will prove fascinating reading for forensic psychotherapists, forensic psychologists and criminologists, as well as anything interested in the criminal justice system.
Communicating with Vulnerable Patients explores ways to improve the communication process between highly vulnerable patients and the therapist, based on the assumption of the permanent presence of an ‘outsider’ or potential space in the communication field between them. In this space, the therapist and highly vulnerable patients can undergo transitional states of mind established between and within their relationship. Leticia Castrechini-Franieck, also known as Maria Leticia Castrechini Fernandes Franieck, presents practical methods to overcome communication issues and engage therapeutically with highly vulnerable patients suffering from personality disorders, addiction, and trauma, as well as with deprived children. Communicating with Vulnerable Patients is presented in five parts, with Part one focused on building communication through a Transient Interactive Communication Approach (TICA) and Part two applying TICA in forensic settings with five case studies illustrating the approach in a range of contexts. Part three considers TICA in intercultural settings, including work with refugees, and Part four outlines adaptations of the approach, including T-WAS (Together We Are Strong), which aims to avoid an increase of antisocial behavior in deprived children, and the use of TICA in the COVID-19 pandemic. The book concludes in Part five with reflections on outcomes and limitations of both TICA and T-WAS. Communicating with Vulnerable Patients will be invaluable reading for professionals, psychotherapists, group therapists, and group analysts working with at-risk populations.
This short book by Professor Brett Kahr provides a psychoanalytic understanding of fame and celebrity in the early twenty-first century, building upon the bedrock foundations of the Freudian corpus. The book is divided into six chapters. Chapter One explores the psychology of the celebrity, questioning narcissistic and exhibitionist psychopathology, while Chapter Two examines the psychological state of those of who revel in the fame of others and in celebrity culture more broadly, and offers a discussion of the "Celebrity Worship Syndrome". Chapter Three provides a very brief history of the concept of celebrity itself, arguing that, contrary to popular opinion, the culture of celebrification cannot be blamed on twenty-first-century media moguls, but, rather, that such a preoccupation with famous personalities can be traced back to ancient times and demonstrates the need to broaden our analysis to include the role of deep, unconscious psychological forces. In Chapter Four, Kahr reviews some important theoretical concepts advanced by Freud and Winnicott, which provide an important foundation for the psychoanalytic study of fame, while Chapter Five provides a more comprehensive theory of the unconscious psychological roots of the need to worship fame and to seek it, drawing upon a multitude of sources, ranging from psychoanalytic theory and developmental psychological research, to film, archaeology, and, perhaps surprisingly, the history of infanticide. The book concludes, in Chapter Six, by studying the psychodynamics of celebrity and fame, arguing that being recognised by one’s family and friends in the intimate context of home life may well be the very best way to become a celebrity. Celebrity Mad outlines a psychoanalytic theory of the roots of our obsession with fame. It will be of great interest to psychoanalytic practitioners and researchers, as well as to readers interested in the psychology of fame.
