Borderline Welfare

Which "forms of feeling" are facilitated and which discouraged within the cultures and structures of modern state welfare? This book illuminates the social and psychic dynamics of these new public cultures of welfare, locating them in relation to our understanding of borderline states of mind in individuals, organizations, and society. Drawing upon their idea of a psychoanalytic sensibility rooted in Wilfred Bion's notion of "learning from experience", the authors aim to access the new structures of feeling now taking shape in commercialized and commodified health and social care systems. Integrating their reflections on clinical work with patients, consultancy with public sector organizations, political analysis, and the tradition of Group Relations Training, they offer a wide-ranging perspective on how contemporary social anxieties are managed within modern public welfare. Our collective struggle with fears of dependency and loss, and the demands of living and working in an inter-dependent "networked" world give rise to fresh challenges to our ability to maintain depth emotional engagements in welfare settings.

Julian Lousado is a Senior Clinical Lecturer in Social Work, and Clinical Director of the Adult Department of the Tavistock Clinic. Andrew Cooper is Professor of Social Work at the Tavistock Clinic and the University of East London.