This book explores how psychoanalytic ideas and thinking enhance our understanding and engagement with the creative arts and contemporary life.

Many of us love to read poetry and novels and enjoy the performing arts. All of us take part in contemporary life. But how might a psychoanalytic perspective deepen our understanding or enhance our experience in these areas? What might we discover when we explore the unconscious dimensions of particular cultural artefacts and activities? Based on the work of the longstanding Psychoanalytic Studies course at the Tavistock, contributing authors draw on their experience of infant observation and psychoanalytic theory and apply them to explorations of culturally diverse and wide-ranging topics such as social work, literature, the act of littering, a Palestinian poem, and even a chart-topping Korean pop song.

Blending a deep understanding of clinical work and a broad range of artistic endeavours, this book will be key reading for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, and anyone interested in understanding how psychoanalysis can inform art and life.

Dr Margaret Lush is a Tavistock-trained child and adolescent psychotherapist who has worked in clinical and educational settings. She has taught on several Tavistock courses and is currently Joint Course Lead for the Tavistock pre-clinical training course for child psychotherapists. She works in private practice and supervises in Britain and abroad.

Kate Robertson trained as a child and adolescent psychotherapist at the Tavistock and became Head of Child Psychotherapy in Hammersmith and Fulham CAMHS, course lead for the Tavistock Psychoanalytic Studies course, and Chair of the Association of Child Psychotherapists. She had to retire early because of health concerns and passed away in October 2023.