Psycho-social Explorations of Trauma, Exclusion and Violence: Un-housed Minds and Inhospitable Environments

215 Pages·2022·3.846 MB·English

by  Christopher Scanlon, John Adlam

“This book inspires a feeling of relief. It brings together the most pressing
issues of our time – climate change, genocide, exclusionary nationalism and
deep-rooted dehumanising racisms – in profoundlyoriginal ways that address
power relations, exclusions, ‘unhousedness’ and (re)traumatisation. It faces
the pain they engender while refusing familiar, patronising tropes of other-
ness. Its perceptive, and sometimes poetic, scholarship brings deep hope that
other, genuinely psycho-social ways of living and relating arepossible, despite
disagreements and disappointments along the way.”
Ann Phoenix, Professor, Psychosocial Studies, UCL, UK
“This is a profoundly disturbing book in the best sense. Chris Scanlon and
John Adlam are known for their highly regarded psycho-social studies into
the concept of the mind that is un-housed by trauma i.e. those experiences
that dismember and dissociate people from communities, creating commu-
nities of the excluded. In this rich work, they revisit and reconsider their
work, with a lens informed by a deepening awareness of the costs of cruelty;
whether by white people to people of colour, men to women and all of us to
the very earth we stand on. Scanlon and Adlam stand up for the value of
disturbance and dissidence, in aworldwherewhat can be said aloud seems to
be constrained and people who say the ‘wrong’ thing can be excluded or
cancelled as if they should not exist. We can learn from getting closer to the
unloved and unloveable and we must do so, if we are not to fragment our
minds, our communities and the earth itself. All those who work with exclu-
ded should read this book, if only to remind themselves that they are part of
thegroupthatexcludedthepeopletheyclaimtowanttohelp.Itisnotalways
comfortable to look in a mirror but I think we can all be grateful to Scanlon
and Adlam for holding up this particular glass.”
Dr Gwen Adshead, Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist and Psychotherapist,
Broadmoor Hospital, UK
“Herewe are givena mirror. Initwe see something disturbingandyethopeful
aboutourselves.Weareconfrontedwiththerealizationthathealingoccurswhen
weseethatpainbelongstothecollectiveratherthantotheindividualswhocarry
it on our behalf – a deeply knowledgeable, intensely wise and fiercely ethical
explorationoftoday’spredicament.Alsoonethatpointstowardhopeamidstthe
wreckage by suggesting how we might re-animate public spaces for reflection,
empathyandunderstanding.”
JamesKrantz,PhD,PastPresident,InternationalSocietyforthe
PsychoanalyticStudyofOrganizations
“In this elegantly argued, carefully documented work, Christopher Scanlon
andJohnAdlamofferarefreshingcriticalangle onsomeofthemostpressing
forms of social traumatization and exclusion. Going beyond ‘dispossession’,
‘necropolitics’ and ‘states of exception’ as means of characterizing the social
injury wrought by inhospitable neoliberal sovereigns, they deploy a deeply
critical, practice-based lens to looking at the suffering in our world produced
by colonial and racist structures, mechanisms of dispossession and unhou-
sedness, and ecocidal policies that are exacerbating a global migration crisis.
The authors mitigate their disappointment at the persistence ofoppression by
proposing ablueprint for solidarity around anti-oppressive social action.”
Michael O’Loughlin, Adelphi University, New York, USA; Co-Editor,
Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society
“Startingfromhomelessnessandendingwith‘race’thisisastudyofabjection
and shame and of its refusal, the refusal to go quietly into the night and
accept your place on society’s outermost margins. Scanlon and Adlam exam-
ine the vexed relations between those who are cast out and those who, simply
by occupying the position that they occupy, do the casting. This wonderfully
imaginativeandprincipledbookdrawsuponastartlingdiversityofsourcesto
explore the paradoxes and predicaments of structural violence.”
Paul Hoggett, Co-Founder, Climate Psychology Alliance
“Psychoanalysis inaugurated the study of the unknown in human experience.
Group analysis added the previously unexplored impact of the social and
political context on personal life and relations. Now Scanlon and Adlam
incorporate the ecological and architectural aspects ofour lives, derived from
power relations and inequalities in the distribution of wealth, which lead the
casualties of the system to an un-housed, dis-membered, and dis-eased exis-
tence. This exceptional book is far from neutrality and a revolutionary con-
tribution. Its reading is a must.”
JuanTubert-Oklander,PsychoanalystandGroupAnalyst,
MaristaUniversityofMerida
Psycho-social Explorations of Trauma,
Exclusion and Violence
The central theme of this book is the operation of intersecting discourses of
power, privilege and positioning as they are revealed in fraught encounters
between in-groups and out-groups in our deeply fracturedworld. The authors
offer a unique perspective on inter-group dynamics and structural violence at
local, societal, cultural and global levels, dissecting processes of toxic ‘other-
ing’ and psycho-social (re-)traumatisation.
The book offers the Diogenes Paradigm as a unique conceptual tool with
whichtoanalysethewaysinwhichthoseofuswhocometobelocatedoutside
oronthe marginsof dominantsocialstructuresare, inonewayor another,the
inheritorsofthelegaciesofcenturiesofoppressionandexclusion.Thisanalysis
offers a distinctive psycho-social redefinition of trauma that foregrounds the
relationshipbetween the inhospitableenvironmentswegenerateand theexperi-
encesofun-housednessthatwetherebyperpetuate.
Written in an engaging and accessible style, Psycho-social Explorations of
Trauma, Exclusion and Violence directly addresses pressing global issues of
racial trauma, human mobility and climate disaster, and offers a manifesto for
thecreativere-imaginingoftheplacesandspacesinwhichconversationsabout
restructuring and reparation can become sustainable. This is an essential and
compelling book for anyone committed to socialjustice, especially for all prac-
titioners working in health, social care and community justice settings, and
researchersandacademicsacrossthebehaviouralandsocialsciences.
Christopher Scanlon is a psycho-social consultant/researcher and consultant
psychotherapist in forensic and adult mental health. He is a training group
analyst at the Institute of Group Analysis and the Irish Group Analytic
Society, and founder member of the Association for Psychosocial Studies.
John Adlam is a group psychotherapist and independent researcher, working
mainly in the National Health Service, UK. He is a founder member of the
Association for Psychosocial Studies and a former Vice President of the
International Association for Forensic Psychotherapy.
The New International Library of Group Analysis
Series Editor: Earl Hopper
Drawing on the seminal ideas of British, European and American group
analysts, psychoanalysts, social psychologists and social scientists, the books
in this series focus on the study of small and large groups, organisations and
other social systems, and on the study of the transpersonal and transgenera-
tional sociality of human nature. NILGA books will be required reading for
the members of professional organisations in the field of group analysis, psy-
choanalysis, and related social sciences. They will be indispensable for the
“formation” of students of psychotherapy, whether they are mainly interested
in clinical work with patients or in consultancy to teams and organisational
clientswithin the private and public sectors.
Richard M. Billow's Selected Papers on Psychoanalysis and Group
Process
Changing Our Minds
Edited by Tzachi Slonim
Addressing Challenging Moments in Psychotherapy
Clinical Wisdom for Working with Individuals, Groups and Couples
Edited by Jerome S. Gans
Psychoanalysis, Group Analysis, and Beyond
Towards a New Paradigm of the Human Being
Juan Tubert-Oklander and Reyna Hernández-Tubert
An Introduction to Psychotherapeutic Playback Theater
Hall of Mirrors on Stage
Ronen Kowalsky, Nir Raz and Shoshi Keisari with Susana Pendzik
Psycho-social Explorations of Trauma, Exclusion and Violence
Un-housed Minds and Inhospitable Environments
Christopher Scanlon and John Adlam
Psycho-social Explorations of
Trauma, Exclusion and Violence
Un-housed Minds and Inhospitable
Environments
Christopher Scanlon and John Adlam
Coverimage:HultonArchive/Stringer;GettyImages
Firstpublished2022
byRoutledge
4ParkSquare,MiltonPark,Abingdon,OxonOX144RN
andbyRoutledge
605ThirdAvenue,NewYork,NY10158
RoutledgeisanimprintoftheTaylor&FrancisGroup,aninformabusiness
©2022ChristopherScanlonandJohnAdlam
TherightofChristopherScanlonandJohnAdlamtobeidentifiedasauthorsof
thisworkhasbeenassertedinaccordancewithsections77and78ofthe
Copyright,DesignsandPatentsAct1988.
Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthisbookmaybereprintedorreproducedor
utilisedinanyformorbyanyelectronic,mechanical,orothermeans,now
knownorhereafterinvented,includingphotocopyingandrecording,orinany
informationstorageorretrievalsystem,withoutpermissioninwritingfromthe
publishers.
Trademarknotice:Productorcorporatenamesmaybetrademarksorregistered
trademarks,andareusedonlyforidentificationandexplanationwithoutintent
toinfringe.
BritishLibraryCataloguing-in-PublicationData
AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Names:Scanlon,Christopher,author.
Title:Psycho-socialexplorationsoftrauma,exclusionandviolence:un-housed
mindsandinhospitableenvironments/ChristopherScanlonandJohnAdlam.
Description:Abingdon,Oxon;NewYork,NY:Routledge,2022.|
Series:Thenewinternationallibraryofgroupanalysis|Includesbibliographical
referencesandindex.|
Identifiers:LCCN2021040960(print)|LCCN2021040961(ebook)|
ISBN9781032121130(hbk)|ISBN9780367893316(pbk)|ISBN
9781003223115(ebk)
Subjects:LCSH:Socialjustice.|Restorativejustice.|Grouppsychoanalysis.
Classification:LCCHM671.S3522022(print)|LCCHM671(ebook)|
DDC303.3/72–dc23/eng/20211013
LCrecordavailableathttps://lccn.loc.gov/2021040960
LCebookrecordavailableathttps://lccn.loc.gov/2021040961
ISBN:978-1-032-12113-0(hbk)
ISBN:978-0-367-89331-6(pbk)
ISBN:978-1-003-22311-5(ebk)
DOI:10.4324/9781003223115
TypesetinTimesNewRoman
byTaylor&FrancisBooks
We dedicate this book to the memory of Edwin ‘Diogenes’
MacKenzie – and to vagabonds everywhere

Contents
Series foreword xi
Prologue xiii
Preface xix
Acknowledgements xxvii
PARTI
Un-housed minds: The Diogenes Paradigm 1
1 Un-housed minds and psycho-social traumatisation 3
2 The Diogenes Paradigm 23
3 Citizens of the world? 39
4 Inhospitability, injury, insult and insurrection 55
5 Agoraphilia and agoraphobia: Negotiating fraught encounters in
open spaces 74
PARTII
Inhospitable environments: Traumatised and traumatising
(dis)organisations 91
6 “Who watches the watchers”? (Dis)organised responses to
psycho-social traumatisation 93
7 The inhospitable planetary environment: ‘Climate migration’,
pandemic and biosphere destruction 111