Book Review: Managing Mental Health in the Community: Chaos and Containment

Abstract

This book is an important addition to the growing literature which applies Kleinian thinking to organizational functioning. In some ways a sequel to Obholzer and Roberts’ earlier book The Unconscious at Work, this text offers a map to help us understand what takes place within community systems of care. As someone who has been working with these ideas in relative isolation for more than Žfteen years, I know how difŽcult it can be to retain mental clarity about them. Even when I have felt clear, it has often seemed extraordinarily difŽcult to convey them to others. I do not think this entirely due to inarticulateness; there seems to be an active resistance to these ideas. One possible explanation might be the absence of a concept of normative uctuations in mental states in the repertoire of some mental health professionals, at least in the USA. Also, in the professional circles I inhabit, the work of Melanie Klein is only remotely familiar, and often seen as strange. Most of my colleagues have not heard of Menzies Lyth, Bion, Meltzer, and certainly not the more recent writers on this topic. I hoped for a text to help clarify these ideas for my students and colleagues. With this difŽculty in mind, while the book’s introductory summary of theory is quite good, it will still be incomprehensible to most Americans and I wondered if the same might also be true for community workers in areas where Kleinian ideas are not familiar. Having said that, on every other front, I was delighted. I shall think about PSYCHODYNAMIC COUNSELLING 6.3 AUGUST 2000