Introduction Psychosis and Psychoanalysis Part II: Politics, Theory, History, Technique

After the incredible success of the 2016 Psychosis and Psychoanalysis Conference at the Freud Museum – the British Journal of Psychotherapy published all the papers in a wonderful double edition (2017) – it seemed that a sequel was in order: the interface between psychoanalysis and psychosis deserved more examination across politics, technique, theory, and history. Hence this second conference, in September 2018, which gathered an impressive panel of frontline clinicians bringing their extensive experience of working psychoanalytically with psychosis – a rare feast for anyone interested in the subject. All the papers presented at the conference are published in this and the next issue of the British Journal of Psychotherapy, except for Berjanet Jazani's paper ‘Psychotic politics: A fury road to the awakening of the primal Father’, which will be included in her forthcoming book.

I was personally enthralled by the clinical and theoretical vibrance of the day. From attachment theory to the French tradition, from Freud and Lacan to Gisela Pankow and Winnicott, from the collective to the individual, from institutions to the community, a variety of perspectives, approaches and settings were discussed and explored in depth. The speakers all gave us fascinating insights into their clinical engagement with psychosis and their personal contribution to the field, leaving us at once inspired and unsettled, hopeful and troubled. In the uncertain times in which we live when, as Freud already observed in 1938, ‘we find to our astonishment that progress has allied itself with barbarism’ (1938, p. 54), the fate of the most vulnerable members of our society is more precarious than ever. In this ‘remarkable period’, to carry on quoting Freud, how to uphold a viable safety net and support system beyond crippling differences and hierarchies perhaps remains the most urgent question.

This conference is inscribed in a fruitful partnership with the Freud Museum London and collaborating with t