The Organic and the Inner World

For some years, there has been an unfortunate tendency in the UK for psychiatry and psychoanalysis to be perceived as in opposition to one another, to the detriment of both disciplines. Rather than see 'organic' psychiatry on one side and 'dynamic' psychiatry on the other, the British Psychoanalytical Society now wishes to try to foster closer links between psychoanalysis and psychiatry. To this end, psychoanalysts have been going out to give presentations of their work to various psychiatric departments, in the hope of building up increasing understanding both of current developments in analytic thinking, and of how analysts can learn from psychiatric colleagues.

The authors learned, from their experience of putting on a number of Freud events, that there is a great hunger to know more about psychoanalysis, particularly among young people, both those in psychiatric training and in the wider community. In parts of the academic world, there is a particular interest in psychoanalysis; indeed the most subscribed courses in some of our most prestigious universities are those where psychoanalysis is involved. This book is the result of a conference that was held at the Institute of Psychoanalysis entitled 'The Organic and the Inner World'. It was organised by the NHS Liaison committee of the British Psychoanalytical Society. Its aim was to consider the place for analytic thinking in the world of psychiatry with its emphasis on an organic approach to major psychiatric disorders.