Borderline Welfare

'This is an important and, in many respects, daring book. It addresses itself to some of the most urgent and challenging areas of contemporary social policy and professional identity. It bases its position and findings in the experience of working intimately, as psychoanalytic psychotherapists as well as social workers, teachers and academics, with the basic reality of people's lives, both social and psychological. [...] Perhaps central to these is what the authors think of as the "state of mind" of society as reflected in its provision of care, variously for its citizens and for those experienced as "outsiders". It describes the hidden costs of the "service delivery" mentality and the sources of some of the social ills which are currently afflicting society. The brush strokes are both broad and fine and in so being introduce a new level of insight into what often seem like the overwhelmingly difficult problems of contemporary social existence.'- Margot Waddell, from Series Editor's Preface

• Series Editor’s Preface -- Introduction: the psychoanalytic study of welfare -- Borderline states of mind and society -- The state of mind we’re in: sincerity, anxiety, and the audit society -- The psychic geography of racism: the state, the clinician, and hatred of the stranger -- The broken link: polemic and pain in mental health work -- Surface tensions: emotion, conflict, and the social containment of dangerous knowledge -- Surface and depth in the Victoria Climbié Inquiry Report: exploring emotionally intelligent policy -- The vanishing organization: organizational containment in a networked world -- Conclusion: complex dependencies and the dilemmas of modern welfare -- Methodological reflections: clinical sensibility and the study of the social