This course will examine contemporary theories of psychosis which derive from British psychoanalysis, and will relate these ideas to the methods of treatment, to the effects of psychotic patients on health-care institutions and workers, to understanding the deeper levels of the human mind and to culture.
Psychotic conditions constitute the major work burden of psychiatry.
Much work exists within psychiatry from an objective standpoint. But much objective study of psychosis is hindered by the problems of disentangling simple cause from effect. Psychoanalytic study is an alternative approach which is not objective but addresses the interactive processes that constitute a subjective and mutual influencing. We will attempt to follow the various forms of understanding psychosis from a subjective point of view. Students without prior experience in a mental health profession should aim to spend some time in a psychiatric unit, in order to get 'get a taste' of the distress which we might call 'psychotic anxiety'.