In this book R.D. Hinshelwood discusses the interplay between the internal world of individuals and the external world, and how they have arisen from a psychoanalytic understanding of the human unconscious. Documenting how a therapeutic community functions, this text contributes to understanding how people can be influenced by their social setting.

R.D. Hinshelwood is a member of the British Psychoanalytical Society, and currently holds the post of Professor of Psychoanalysis at the Centre for Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and previously was Clinical Director of the Cassel Hospital in Richmond. He is a past Chair of the Association of Therapeutic Communities. Professor Hinshelwood has written extensively on psychoanalysis and founded the International Journal of Therapeutic Communities (now Therapeutic Communities) in 1980 and the British Journal of Psychotherapy in 1984.

Introduction. Foreword, by Nick Manning. Prologue: Demoralisation in the Hospital Community. PART ONE: BOUNDARIES AND BOUNDARY PHENOMENA. 1. Reversing the Old. 2. The Anxious Institution and its Defensiveness. 3. Role Relations and Power Relations. 4. The Community Personality: Complicity and Dramatisation. 5. Communication: Linking and Thinking. 6. Challenge and Paradox. PART TWO: ACTING AND THINKING. 7. The Institution's Primal Scene. 8. The Institution's Therapeutic Process. 9. Abuse and Acting-Out. 10. The Group as a Containing Reflective Space. 11. Reflection and Action. PART THREE: RELATIONAL NETWORKS. 12. A Group as Network. 13. The Supervision Network. 14. Chains of Links. PART FOUR: THE ALIENATED COMMODITY AND MARKET PSYCHOLOGY. 15. Alienation and Its Assumptions. 16. Health Capital. 17. Future Visions: Towards Community Care. Epilogue: Living Together. References. Index.