The Mark of the Decanting and the Brick Mother Report

Abstract

The authors explore the value of using psychoanalysis in a community and a social justice setting. A so-called Mental Health Marathon Project in South Africa left human wreckage in its wake. Psychoanalysis, as a conjunction between ordinary human interaction and psychoanalytic awareness (Parsons, 2007), provided a way of thinking and intervening in this context so that the families were provided with holding and containment, but forensic goals were also achieved in the form of an expert report. This document, named the "Brick Mother Report" (Steiner, as cited in Rey, 1994), attempts to make psychological sense of the impact of the Marathon Project.