This book centres on the problem of psychosis, understood from a psychoanalytic perspective, as it manifests itself in different contexts and different levels of organisation: from the individual psychoanalytic session, through work with couples, groups and institutions and wider levels of social organisation. Beginning with a discussion of the psychoanalytic approach to psychosis centring on the work of Freud, Klein and the Post-Kleinians, it goes on to cover individual, couple and group therapy with psychotic patients. It draws on clinical material and theoretical discussion to explore the links between psychotic processes on different levels. This work is aimed at different professionals working within the psychodynamic frame of reference: individual psychotherapists, couple and family and group psychotherapists; organisational consultants and trainees in different therapies. As well as this it will be a useful resource to nurses, doctors and social workers who work with very disturbed patients and wish to learn about psychotic processes.

'A comprehensive exploration of some of the most puzzling and intransigent mental states that clinicians encounter ; "Ground breaking" is often an over-used and cliched term, ...but in the case of this book, it constitutes a fair description, one most unusual in the professional literature hitherto.'- Margot Waddell, author of Inside Lives: Psychoanalysis and the Growth of the Personality'A wide ranging collection showing the immense value of a psychoanalytic approach to severe psychological disorder- Never could a need for a book like this be more urgent than at our current juncture.'- John Steiner, author of Psychic Retreats: Pathological Organisations in Psychotic, Neurotic and Borderline Patients and Seeing and Being Seen: Emerging from a Psychic RetreatContentsThe psychoanalytic approach to the treatment of psychotic patients - Hanna Segal Reflections on "meaning" and "meaninglessness" in post-Kleinian thought - Margot Waddell Rigidity and stability in a psychotic patient: some thoughts about obstacles to facing reality in psychotherapy - Margaret Rustin Forms of "folie-a-deux" in the couple relationship - James FisherPsychotic and depressive processes in couple functioning - Francis GrierThe Frozen Man: further reflections on glacial times - Salomon ResnikPsychotic processes: a group perspective - Aleksandra NovakovicPsychotic processes in large groups - Caroline Garland A community meeting on an acute psychiatric ward: observation and commentaries:Ward observation: Commentary I - David Kennard; Commentary II - Julian Lousada; Commentary III - Mary Morgan; Commentary IV - Wilhelm Skogstad Asylum and society - Elizabeth Bott Spillius Schizophrenia, meaninglessness, and professional stress - R.D. Hinshelwood Brilliant stupidity: madness in organizational life - a perspective from organizational consultancy - Tim Dartington The dynamics of containment - David Bell

David Bell is a Consultant Psychiatrist at the Tavistock Clinic in London, where he directs the Fitzjohn's Unit, a specialist service for serious/complex psychological disorders. He is visiting Professorial Fellow, Birkbeck College, London and past President of the British Psychoanalytical Society. Throughout his career he has been deeply involved in the relation between psychoanalysis and literature, philosophy and politics, and has made numerous contributions in these areas. He is one of the UK's leading psychiatric experts in asylum/human rights. He is contributing editor of 'Reason and Passion' and 'Psychoanalysis and Culture: A Kleinian Perspective'. Aleksandra Novakovic is a couple psychoanalytic psychotherapist and a psychoanalyst. She was Joint Head of the Inpatient & Community Psychology Service and a Consultant Clinical Psychologist in the Adult Mental Health Psychology Service. She worked at the Tavistock Centre for Couple Relationships and taught and supervised on the Couple Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Training. She teaches for the British Psychoanalytic Association and supervises on the Reflective Practice in Organizations Course, Institute of Group Analysis. She co-edited (with David Bell), 'Living on the Border: Psychotic Processes in the Individual, the Couple and the Group' (2013).