About this event

Join us for our next installment in our policial mind series with speaker David Morgan.

This paper examines the psychic and institutional defences mobilised in the ongoing crisis of the National Health Service (NHS), situating the scapegoating of migrants, the sick, the disabled, and the poor alongside the corporatisation of care as interconnected responses to collective anxiety about dependency, fragility, and mortality.

Drawing on psychoanalytic theory and political thought, I argue that hostility to marginalised groups and the rise of audit culture both function as modes of disavowal: projecting unwanted dependency into vulnerable others, while enforcing false selves into staff through corporate performance of compassion. 

Clinical and cultural vignettes will hopefully illustrate how projection, splitting, and the emphasis on false containment is beginning to operate both in individual treatment and in public institutions. 

The paper concludes by proposing a political model  that might tolerate more effectively ambivalence, mourn loss, and reclaim solidarity as the basis for health and care.

David Morgan is a Fellow of the British Psychoanalytic Society and Chair of Political Mind 

Please note: This event will be recorded and available for 1 week to all registered participants.

Concession tickets are available, for students, BPAS candidates and NHS trainees. Please email [email protected] if you are unsure if you qualify for a concession ticket.

Event booking terms and conditions.

Views and opinions expressed by speakers are their own and do not represent the views or opinions of the Institute, event organisers or other speakers. We expect delegates to respect the confidentiality of clinical material discussed in our events. The content must not be recorded, conveyed or disseminated in any format and participants must not share access to the event with non-registered participants.

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