Papers by Christopher Scanlon
Groupwork, Dec 20, 2012
In this article we present a psycho-social, 'group-ish' (Bion, 1961) and philosophically Cynical ... more In this article we present a psycho-social, 'group-ish' (Bion, 1961) and philosophically Cynical commentary upon contemporary notions of recovery, wellbeing and positive psychology. These are, at times, being cynically deployed to address profoundly damaging processes of social traumatisation that give rise to certain forms of mental disease , which we describe as 'being unwell-ness', and related psycho-social disease which is being linked to low productivity, under-or unemployment and low social status, and that we describe as worklessness and worth-lessness. We state at the outset of the paper that much excellent work is done by statutory, non-statutory and service user led groups and organisations to engage with these problems. However, in our commentary we will suggest how the language and currency of these initiatives are in danger of being hijacked and sidetracked by the vested interests of explicit and tacit political and professional agendas of the in group at the expense of those whom we seek to help.
... is a reciprocal problem of the antisocial position and the societal response (Norton & Do... more ... is a reciprocal problem of the antisocial position and the societal response (Norton & Dolan, 1995; Scanlon & Adlam, 2008a). ... and systemically (Adshead & Jacob, 2009; Declerk, 2006; Department of Health, 2003; Hinshelwood, 1999; Johnson & Webb, 1995; Kelly & May, 1982 ...
Housing, Care and Support, Jun 8, 2012
Purpose-This paper aims to offer a critical analysis of the potentially traumatising nature of wo... more Purpose-This paper aims to offer a critical analysis of the potentially traumatising nature of working with (dis)stressed and traumatised people with complex needs who are homeless. It also seeks to provide a commentary on the contribution of Psychologically Informed Services: A Good Practice Guide in addressing the impact of these difficult dynamics upon workers, teams and organisations. Design/methodology/approach-The paper is an invited piece and is based on the specialist experience and viewpoint of the authors working as psychotherapists with a background in therapeutic community work and of their experience of reflective practice and team development consultancy with teams working in homelessness services. Findings-With increasing demand and more restricted funding for homelessness resettlement services, the authors raise issues in the complex interaction of institutional and social and interpersonal dilemmas for staff ''stuck in the middle'' between the (dis)stressing nature of clients' ''unhoused'' minds and the (dis)stressed response of the systems of care. A group-analytic, systems psychodynamics approach is used to shed light upon the risks to workers when services do not make time to reflect upon these (dis)stressing and potentially traumatising dynamics. They also point towards some of the personal and professional characteristics required in consulting to staff teams and agencies working with such complex dynamics. Originality/value-The new operational guidance is welcomed, however, the authors suggest that the successful implementation of Psychologically Informed Environments (PIEs) is reliant on the capacity of any given organisation to build effective cultures and structures to support the development of reflective practice and team development.
Jessica Kingsley eBooks, 2018
Groupwork, 2010
In this article we present a psycho-social, 'group-ish' (Bion, 1961) and philosophically Cynical ... more In this article we present a psycho-social, 'group-ish' (Bion, 1961) and philosophically Cynical commentary upon contemporary notions of recovery, wellbeing and positive psychology. These are, at times, being cynically deployed to address profoundly damaging processes of social traumatisation that give rise to certain forms of mental disease , which we describe as 'being unwell-ness', and related psycho-social disease which is being linked to low productivity, under-or unemployment and low social status, and that we describe as worklessness and worth-lessness. We state at the outset of the paper that much excellent work is done by statutory, non-statutory and service user led groups and organisations to engage with these problems. However, in our commentary we will suggest how the language and currency of these initiatives are in danger of being hijacked and sidetracked by the vested interests of explicit and tacit political and professional agendas of the in group at the expense of those whom we seek to help.
Psychodynamic Practice, Aug 1, 2011
In this paper, we examine the dynamics of social exclusion from a psychosocial perspective, takin... more In this paper, we examine the dynamics of social exclusion from a psychosocial perspective, taking the system of care, representing societyas-a-whole, as a perverse system that excludes whilst simultaneously seeking to include. Our focus is as much upon the predicament of the system of care as it is upon the plight of the troubled 'refuser' who takes up the antisocial position and refuses to join in. We revisit the legend of Diogenes the Cynic to explore a particular kind of ideological clash in the encounter between the in-group and the outsider. We explore the nature of the transaction between, on the one hand, 'metropolitan', 'city-state' systems of care, which defensively and, we argue, offensively define their boundaries in ways that exclude (or that set unacceptable terms for the invitation to include) and, on the other hand, the excluded, 'cosmopolitan' seekers (or avoiders) of different kinds of asylum: 'citizens of the uni-verse' who withhold their allegiance to any particular earthly power. In doing so, we explore the nature and quality of the relationship between 'us' and 'them' that is established across a boundary by the particular ways in which the boundary is defined. We observe that the very real psychosocial problems associated with the homeless, the dangerous and the disordered are complex and chronic; and go on to explore the ways in which 'we', the safely housed and socially ordered, have a collective and shared responsibility for the co-creation of our shared problems. We conclude with an invitation to conceptualise more 'cosmopolitan' forms of hospitality for those who refuse to 'come in from the cold' on the 'metropolitan' terms more usually offered.
Housing, Care and Support, Dec 1, 2006
We begin with a discussion of the psychosocial concepts of ‘personality disorder’ and ‘homelessne... more We begin with a discussion of the psychosocial concepts of ‘personality disorder’ and ‘homelessness’, and then seek to re‐define and re‐locate both from the internal world of the patient/client to the psychosocial ‘dis‐memberment’ associated with what we have called the ‘unhoused mind’. We then explore the complex reciprocal relationship between the ‘ordered’ and the ‘dis‐ordered’, the housed and the unhoused, and consider some possible implications for individual workers, staff teams and organisations tasked with attempting to house and/or to care for and support such people.
Critical Social Policy, Nov 1, 2008
Despite the best, and at times the worst, efforts of systems of care 'to include', there remains ... more Despite the best, and at times the worst, efforts of systems of care 'to include', there remains a group of people whose refusal to be included remains a problem both for themselves and for society as a whole. Our discussion relocates the problems arising from the antisocial stance at the heart of this refusal from the internal world of the refuser to phenomena associated with what we have called psychosocial dis-memberment and the 'un-housed mind'. We explore the complex reciprocal relationship between the housed and the un-housed, between society's members and those whom society dis-members and we consider some possible implications for individual workers, staff teams and organizations who are tasked with attempting to house, remember or otherwise to accommodate such people. We conclude with a challenge to practitioners, academics and policy makers to reframe the philosophical basis of their approach towards these complex psychosocial problems.
Routledge eBooks, Jan 5, 2022
Routledge eBooks, Jan 5, 2022
Ethics and Social Welfare, Jun 1, 2013
We draw on ancient Greek philosophy and contemporary psychosocial theorists to analyse the ethica... more We draw on ancient Greek philosophy and contemporary psychosocial theorists to analyse the ethical implications of social policies implemented through the welfare state with the espoused objective of achieving social inclusion. We argue that many such policies establish a boundary between domains of inclusion and exclusion that perversely maintains the very problem such policies are designed to solve. They then also provide ‘rationalisations’ for social exclusion which imply that such states can be explained—that they are ethical, and so legitimate. We illustrate our argument with reference to a specific area of social policy—Improving Access to Psychological Therapies—and discuss how it impacts on our own area of practice as state employed psychotherapists. We analyse how this policy frames aspects of social exclusion (un(der)employment?) as a ‘psychological’ problem: a move that grants the excluded a specific kind of identity and then locates the problem of exclusion in this identity. We invoke Plato's Republic to show how this offer of psychological ‘help’ subliminally suggests that these mental disorders result from individuals' failures to ‘know their place’ and to ‘mind their own business’, rather than as a consequence of complex networks of social (dis)orders, exclusions and injustices within which we are all embedded.
Bristol University Press eBooks, Aug 16, 2017
Routledge eBooks, Jan 5, 2022
Group Analysis, Sep 1, 2005
... London: Collins. Kelly, MP and May, D. (1982) 'Good and Bad Patients: A Review of the Li... more ... London: Collins. Kelly, MP and May, D. (1982) 'Good and Bad Patients: A Review of the Literature and a Theoretical Critique', Journal of Advanced Nursing 7: 14756. ...Adlam & Scanlon: Personality Disorder and Homelessness 465 ...
Psychotherapy Section Review, 2018
In this article, we build on our previous work to examine how staff teams working with 'un-ho... more In this article, we build on our previous work to examine how staff teams working with 'un-housed minds' in health and social care settings can become (dis)stressed, dis-organised, disappointed and potentially traumatised. We will argue that this happens irrespective of whether the (dis)stressing experience seems to come from the work with clients or from the dis-orienting effects of organisational and social change processes. Using a psychosocial, group-analytically informed systems-psychodynamic approach we explore the complexity of the reciprocal relationships and the social and organisational parallel processes played out between those who provide these kinds of services and those who use them; also between those are employed and those who employ them, as well as between those who commission such services and those who must manage them. We suggest that, in the current socio-economic climate, dominated by neo-liberal discourses around austerity and the 'undeserving poor' of the homeless, the workless and the 'worth-less', all staff teams concerned with the provision of different kinds of accommodation, care and support will become increasingly (dis)stressed and dysfunctional as they find themselves squeezed between the dis-organisation of the systems they work in and the distressing nature of working with the clients they notionally serve: between the ‘rock’ of increasing demand and dependent need and the ‘hard place’ of apparently decreasing resources. Whether this is simply because there is just too much damage and dis-orderand not enough resources or whether it is because we do not care enough about the plight of our fellow citizens to organise ourselves better to think about how better to (re-)distribute the resources is a moot point. But in either case, in order to continue to practice ethically and to minimise the damage to all, we suggest that it is vital that teams can think together about the importance of opening up reflective spaces for structured conversations, within the wider cultures of psychologically informed environments (PIEs), where these issues can be meaningfully thought about. We will conclude by re-stating our view that, in order to be able to continue to work in these dis-appointing environments, it is imperative that we open up reflective spaces for team development, within which we can struggle together to make sense of these painful and potentially compromising personal, professional, organisational and socio-political challenges
Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society, Feb 7, 2013
ABSTRACT In this article we build on a previous work to develop a critique of the notion of the s... more ABSTRACT In this article we build on a previous work to develop a critique of the notion of the supposedly deliberate or intentional quality of acts of self-harm and selfneglect. We suggest the term reflexive violence as a way to understand how some of us harm or neglect our-selves and become ‘identified’ as casualties (though not necessarily victims) of processes of inclusion/exclusion, oppression and colonisation played out between in-groups and socially constructed out-groups. We deploy this construct of reflexive violence to review shifting attitudes toward what constitutes deviance from the norm in modern societies, particularly the social and historical fluidities in the contested definitions of ‘personality disorder’ reflected in the American Psychiatric Association’s periodic redrafting and updating of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. We also draw on philosophical, sociological and historical sources to develop a psychosocial and systems-psychodynamic commentary on discourses of power whose modalities of domination may be perceived in this violent attribution of intent into the excluded out-group.
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Papers by Christopher Scanlon
There is necessarily something very public about the way that each party to the long and fraught relationship prosecutes and defends the publication of their grievances with each other. The index offence, where there is one – the criminal record – can be understood as both a cryptic and a straightforward expression or publication of the patient’s distress, disturbance or disaffection. The sentence meted out is an equivalent public expression of the extent to which the judgement of the courts has taken offence on behalf of the wider community. In cases where the community has taken greatest offence, the offending individual is not only deprived of his ‘liberty’ or ‘freedom to act’, but is then often further punished through degrading and inhumane treatment under the cover of correction or rehabilitation. These are the outward, psycho-social manifestations of the difficulties which follow from the problematic relationship between the offender and the offended.
The focus of this chapter will be on the persistent threat to psychic survival faced both by nurses and patients in forensic settings, how these threats become manifest in the dynamic interplay between nurses (and others with the multi-disciplinary team) and those mentally disordered offender patients who are perceived to be dangerous. Our starting point is that these threats are both real and imagined and are brought about by the enforced proximity (or the avoidance of it) between nurses and patients within forensic settings.
Rather than socialising, the perverse panopticon provides a context within which pro-social forces can be corrupted and staff, as the arbiters of some of these would-be pro-social forces, can become contaminated. In their contaminated states of mind, they then present a clear and present danger to those who they watch over. As was the case with Foucault’s historical lazar-houses and the fictional citizens of Camus’ plague-stricken town, the anxiety of the perverse panopticon gives rise to a very real psycho-somatic fear of relationally transmitted dis-eases as well as the omnipresent threat that it might manifest itself as real physical violence. It is as if the very atmosphere of the ward is contaminated by a terrifying yet invisible environmental pollution which cannot easily be symbolised, nor can it be avoided or ignored –regardless of whether or not one is a wearer of the ‘white coat’.
In the forensic treatment setting each party is watching the other for any sign of the aggression, violence or seduction which might put them in harm’s way. There is a persistent threat to psychic survival faced both by the workers and the patients inhabiting these boundariless universes where the intrusiveness of looking and being looked at is everywhere. In this perverse and ‘unboundaried’ environment the very real dangerousness of the patient mirrors the ways in which they experience themselves as endangered by the boundariless and perverted advances of the would-be helper and vice versa. In these settings there is nowhere for either sub-group to hide.
The book offers the Diogenes Paradigm as a unique conceptual tool with which to analyse the ways in which those of us who come to be located outside or on the margins of dominant social structures are, in one way or another, the inheritors of the legacies of centuries of oppression and exclusion. This analysis offers a distinctive psycho-social re-definition of trauma that foregrounds the relationship between the inhospitable environments we generate and the experiences of un-housedness that we thereby perpetuate.
Psycho-social Explorations of Trauma, Exclusion and Violence directly addresses pressing global issues of racial trauma, human mobility and climate disaster and offers a manifesto for the creative re-imagining of the places and spaces in which conversations about restructuring and reparation can become sustainable.
Pre-order: https://www.routledge.com/Psycho-social-Explorations-of-Trauma-Exclusion-and-Violence-Un-housed/Scanlon-Adlam/p/book/9780367893316