Search results

This paper looks at how people from Black and Minority Ethnic groups have been disproportionately affected by COVID. The paper links this with both psycho-social factors and childhood stress and trauma. It looks at the effects of unconscious racism on the minds and physiology of those affected. The relationship between the impact of stress, trauma, racism and Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) is discussed, and how ACEs are linked with very poor later physical and mental health outcomes. The article suggests that these issues are highly over determined but that for change to occur we need interventions at a range of levels, from the macro-political, psychosocial, individual and economic, including unconscious implicit biases.

This article challenges thinkers and activists on the left who are over-suspicious of ideas heralding from disciplines such as interpersonal neurobiology, attachment theory, developmental psychology, and perhaps especially, evolutionary theory. Although scepticism is frequently warranted,
especially as such discourses are often co-opted for neoliberal or far right ends, there is much in all of them that melds well with critiques of hegemonic social orders, providing potential fuel for those working for social change. Much work, for example that of Amy Cuddy, can be interpreted
both conservatively and progressively. Work from within an attachment theory paradigm can play a crucial part in the battle of ideas: it has a huge amount to teach about how to create a more humane and egalitarian world, and in countering neoliberal beliefs that humans are innately primarily
aggressive, competitive or selfish, or have selfish genes. The days are now over when the biological, psychological and the social need to be pitted against each other. Rather, they now have to be seen as mutually constituted. The brain is a social organ, embedded, embodied, enactive and extended,
in large part a reflection of the social conditions in which it grows.

Intro -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- Contributors -- Introduction -- References -- Chapter 1: Key concepts developed at the Portman Clinic -- Note -- References -- Chapter 2: Motiveless malignity: problems in the psychotherapy of patients with psychopathic features -- Introduction -- A child with psychopathic features -- Some clinical differentiation between neurotic, borderline and psychopathic states of mind -- Borderline patients -- Patients with psychopathic features -- Technical problems with patients with psychopathic features -- A second example of a child with psychopathic features: Billy -- Discussion and conclusion: four technical issues -- References -- Chapter 3: Considering perversion from a Portman Clinic perspective -- Introduction -- The self-preservative function of the ego -- Ruthless aggression -- The role of sadism -- The core complex -- The development of a perversion -- The case of Mr. J -- Homosexuality -- Aggression as reactive or instinctual -- Some thoughts about working with individuals who suffer from a perversion -- Conclusion -- Note -- References -- Chapter 4: Young people in difficulty with internet sex and pornography -- Digital worlds, online sexual stimuli and new challenges -- Themes and challenges of the work -- 'Mano': using pornography to defend against painful feelings and a lack of body awareness -- 'Liam' : pornography as a 'solution' to the terrors of intimacy and as an electronic transitional object -- 'Marsha': sexting and sexualization as a response to deprivation and dissociation -- 'Dillon': the risks of enactment in the virtual world -- Conclusions -- References -- Chapter 5: Seeing and being seen: the psychodynamics of pornography through the lens of Winnicott's thought -- The harm being done by internet pornography -- Psychodynamic aspects of compulsive behaviour.

The first step of effective health and social care is always to accurately identify your client's needs. This theoretically informed guide will show you how to enhance and apply your observation skills as required by the College of Social Work in a variety of challenging health and social settings with children, families and adults