In this reflection the author makes connections between the themes of the special issue and an early series of seminars held at the Freud Museum London, in 1992, ‘Psychotherapy Black and White’, organized in cooperation with the intercultural therapy centre Nafsiyat. These seminars were invested in the social mission of psychoanalysis, and were intended not only for psychotherapists but for social workers, counsellors, psychiatrists, probation officers, community health workers, teachers and others. The author reflects on psychotherapy as an ecosystem and on the issue of the ‘boundaries’ of psychoanalysis: when they are excessively policed, this limits the domain of psychoanalytic knowledge, including by undermining the legitimacy of social clinics.