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This Special Issue of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy draws together papers presented at the British Psychoanalytic Council (BPC) Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy NOW conference ‘Getting to grips with society's ills: a psychoanalytic perspective’, held in London on 5 October 2013. Inspired by the work of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), a British social policy research and development charity that funds a UK-wide research and development programme addressing the root causes of social problems, the conference sought to explore psychoanalytic perspectives on some of the key problems in today's society identified by the JRF: the rise of individualism, consumerism and a decline of community; a decline of values; drugs and alcohol; families and young people; inequality and poverty; institutions, apathy and a democratic deficit. Drawing almost 250 delegates, the conference's talks and ensuing discussions and debates successfully demonstrated how both the academic and clinical study of psychoanalysis and its applications are of direct relevance to political discourse and social policy today.
We were not able to publish papers from all of the talks and workshops in the conference, as some of them had already been published elsewhere. This was the case for that of the keynote speaker, Salman Akhtar, whose moving and personal talk on ‘The mental pain of minorities’ provided the perfect debut for the ensuing stimulating presentations and discussions on the, often hidden, disquiets and ills afflicting today's society, and I would urge readers to access the published version of Akhtar's (2014) talk in the British Journal of Psychotherapy. However, we are very fortunate in being able to publish expanded versions of talks from almost all of the parallel sessions, each of which addressed at least one of the key themes identified by the JRF and listed above.
Jean Knox sets the scene in highlighting society's ills in her paper ‘The blame and shame society’, which addresses the assault on