Geoff Ferguson

There'll be scenes like this (and much worse) up and down the UK if Reform get into government and start acting out their Send Them Back fantasies. A thousand acts of sadism carried out by malevolent racist thugs employed and empowered by the state.

Some of you will be safe. Many of us won't.

Uncanny sense of threat from group of children

Last ECPS Psychoanalytic Film Club, Haneke's fascinating The White Ribbon, themes: the uncanny, the return of the repressed, fascism.
As with a therapy session, the film doesn't include answers. But sometimes we shouldn't look for answers, instead allow ourselves to be transformed by an experience.

Painting of Nietzsche by Edvard Munch

Took part as a member in the first CityLit meeting of my Nietzsche reading group. Great group of people, with interesting contributions. I've known nothing about Nietzsche, so good to continue exploring links between psychoanalysis and continental philosophy.

Interesting reflections on a significant contemporary theorist

This over-valuing of possibly super intelligent machines and the uploading of human entities, also misses out the meaning given to life by being embodied, with its consequent emotional richness. Rationality without embodied emotion is a very thin existence.

The rise of end times fascism | Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor The governing ideology of the far right has become a monstrous, supremacist survivalism. Our task is to build a movement strong enough to stop them

Yes it is very dangerous when the endtime elitists get so much power. www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...

JoAnn Wypijewski, Disposable — Sidecar The US migration regime.

newleftreview.org/sidecar/post...

'Angels in the nursery (2005)', Lieberman et al on possible benign childhood experiences that the traumatised child can draw upon when they become a parent. Interrupting intergenerational cycles of maltreatment. As important as Fraiberg's 'Ghosts'. Good to end the term with a hopeful message.

The prehistoric psychopath - Works in Progress Life in the state of nature was less violent than you might think. Most of our ancestors avoided conflict. But this made them vulnerable to a few psychopaths.

Update on Pinker's 'Better Angels'. Claim that we evolved to often be collaborative, except that psychopaths often achieve positions of power.
worksinprogress.co/issue/the-pr...

Ego defences displayed here include rationalisation, splitting, denial, and projection.

The number of people with chronic conditions is soaring. Are we less healthy than we used to be – or overdiagnosing illness? Are ordinary life experiences, bodily imperfections and normal differences being unnecessarily pathologised? One doctor argues just that

"Of the scores of people I spoke to... all perceived their lives to be better off thanks to an [ADHD] diagnosis. [And yet, since] the diagnosis, almost all had left their job, dropped out of education & lost many old friends. Several were housebound".
www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

One of the many useful insights in this article: 'Johnstone prefers to conceptualise mental health problems as survival strategies rather than brain disorders.' Not to ignore real suffering, but many MH 'symptoms' involve attempts to solve an underlying dilemma or conflict.

Extract from Christina Emanuel (2015) 'An Accidental Pokemon Expert'

From Christina Emanuel. In 'An Accidental Pokemon Expert' (2015), she encourages us to see the individual's subjective experience within autism.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) reports that nearly a quarter of the UK population now suffers 'material deprivation' (being unable to properly heat their homes or feed their families).... And we wonder why mental & emotional anguish escalates....

Dreams under fascism, and paralysis:

I hurt therefore I am: a new approach to our shared vulnerability | Aeon Essays We should be able to acknowledge that disabilities can cause pain and suffering without disabled people feeling dehumanised

3/ Tom Shakespeare: 'All of us will grow weary and die. True inclusion is to value people equally, regardless of their abilities. Happiness comes from acceptance of frailties.'
aeon.co/essays/i-hur...

YouTube video by Christopher Lee Examined Life Judith Butler & Sunaura Taylor 720p avi

2/ Judith Butler and Sunaura Taylor: conversation about living in this society with bodies that have 'diverse characteristiccs and shared needs' youtu.be/R_N84BffPcM

1/ Pamela Bartram (Melancholia, Mourning, Love. 2013): Therapy with disabled adults/parents of a disabled child, disability can bring loss of ego ideal and consequent harsh superego. If melancholia can turn to mourning, then Britton's 'Rueful humour' and an acceptance of impermanence can emerge.

2/ Alleyne warns we need to work sensitively with the associated historical & present-day narcissistic wounds, which even 'small' hurts can reopen. Important, though, not to see all negatives as external to the self. Need to recognise role of shame, as well as presence of resilience.

Photo of Aileen Alleyne

Next seminar: Aileen Alleyne 2007 The internal oppressor. External oppression leading to an inhibiting adaptive false self. Alleyne sees this as a specific structure, different to internalised oppression, the latter being internalisation of the oppressor's values.

Of course, I am responsible for my feelings, these are my judgements or desires, but I also need to be curious - why am I feeling this with this person and at this time? What analytic third are we co-creating and what might this tell me about them. Including if I am feeling cold and uncaring.

I'm not sure that one can ever be free of being judgemental, nor of having memory or desire. The psychoanalytic task is to be aware of how these arise in response to the other, how much my reactions are intended by the other, and what their function is for them.

Raphael-Leff's 'Absolute hospitality and the imagined baby' (2020) provided a good start to a term on human development. Our beginnings lie in the body and mind of the mother. Raphael-Leff also reminds us that a degree of maternal ambivalence is to be expected.

Awais Aftab brings his usual clear thinking and compassion to the complex and non-determining relationship between biological sex and gender identity.

Revisiting Freud’s “Discrediting” Frederick Crews has died. Let’s lay his views on psychoanalysis to rest.

One of The American Psychoanalyst's top stories for 2024 is this useful and well-written piece by Lily Meyersohn...
Revisiting Freud’s “Discrediting” open.substack.com/pub/american...

Another thoughtful post by Awais Aftab, this about risk and iatrogenic harm.
open.substack.com/pub/awaisaft...

A great thread with a insight that continues to be challenging; but without this insight much of human life remains obscure.

Thanks for the reminder of Fairbairn. And, of course, this trauma may lead the child to believe that its own love is toxic and that this is the reason that it is not loved.

Thanks for sharing these (and other) images.