Psychodynamic Analysis Research Articles

The taboo of sexuality and the desire for parenthood of people with intellectual disabilities living in care facilities in France

How do the support staff and the families of the residents with intellectual disabilities of care facilities in France perceive the latter’s sexual life and desire for parenthood and how is this taken into account in their interactions? Life-history interviews conducted with seven family caregivers and four focus groups using Photolanguage® conducted with the support staff were analyzed using a thematic and a psychodynamic analysis. Both institutional rules and families’ concerns impact the sexual expression of the residents. Their sexual and intimate lives are primarily perceived as an ‘additional problem’. Fearing the reactions of the families, support staff tend to keep residents in the dark about reproductive and sexual health issues These findings reveal an urgent need to change the paradigm in these institutions: a vision of residents as fully-fledged adults who can make choices and who have the right to clear information in their sexual and intimate life.

(In)visibilité dans la clinique de l’AVC du sujet âgé : effets intrapsychiques et intersubjectifs de l’utilisation de l’IRM

ContextThis paper illustrates a psychodynamic analysis of the intrapsychic and intersubjective effects of the use of MRI in a Neurovascular Unit (NVU) for elderly post-stroke patients, in mainland France. The sudden onset of the stroke and the shift from independence to dependence are juxtaposed with the reality of normal and pathological aging in the elderly, making the boundaries around these two issues difficult to determine. ObjectivesThe aim of this paper is to propose a reflection about the intrapsychic and intersubjective effects of the almost automatic use of the MRI results during the hospitalization of elderly post-stroke patients. MethodThis is a theoretical-clinical elaboration based on clinical cases derived from clinical psychotherapeutic sessions with post-stroke hospitalized patients, institutional observations during staff meetings, and transdisciplinary interviews with the patients and their families. ResultsWe can conclude, through the cases studied and the theoretical analysis that a more personalized use of MRI is essential, because it may help the patient to visualize his or her stroke, to organize what has been psychologically and physically disorganized, and to create a link with the healthcare professional. However, an automated and mechanized way of showing these results may lead the patient into a psychological impasse, accentuate the psycho-corporal disorganization, and complexify the relationship with others. InterpretationsMRI is nowadays the main tool for diagnosing strokes, allowing in vivo exploration of the human brain. Despite its relatively recent appearance, MRI seems to be essential in the treatment and monitoring of stroke patients. However, the use of showing the MRI results to the elderly patients in a stroke unit, their families, and the healthcare professionals does not seem to have been thought through, or at the very least, reflected upon consciously.

Approche historique des épreuves projectives par le jeu au décours du XXe siècle

ObjectiveThe objective of this article consists in presenting the historical and epistemological analysis of the various psychological currents at the origin of the creation of the various play-based projective tests during the 20th century in Europe. The historical and conceptual sources of these proofs being fragmentary, an analysis of the archives proved necessary in order to grasp the nature of their differences and their common elements. The psychodynamic analysis of the child's motives for playing, along with their traces in the adolescent and in the adult, make it possible to think about the different modes of apprehension of the analysis of play according to the tests’ creators. The different objectives of these creators are analyzed in order to perceive the theoretical background that motivated their creations. MethodThe presentation of the Scenotest to autistic children and the various interpretative possibilities led me to return to the historical sources of the different contexts of the creation of play-based tests: The World Test, The Village Test, The Imaginary Village Test, The Scenotest. The quest for expression through play is constantly questioned according to different concepts in order to access humans’ modes of psychic and perceptual functioning. However, we can observe common elements in the approach to the investment of space and time, which we propose to analyze. The updating of the links between the various creators and researchers leads to an examination of a shared foundation for the various play-based projective tests under discussion, differences in treatment of the material, as well as their implementation. The contribution for each version of the play tests is recorded in the analysis of the diversification of methods. ResultsThe results attest to a common goal centered on the spatial treatment of constructions and what they reveal of the unconscious of each one as well as their links to the collective. Admittedly, research projects take on different colors depending on the creators. There is no shared method: each creator deploys his personal method of analyzing the creation of individual and collective living spaces, circulation spaces. However, we have grouped together several common elements: - None of the test creators make a link with Freudian infantile sexuality. - The focus is on the action of the game, which is used to decipher the qualities of constructions, even strategies to distribute the constructions. - The observation and analysis of the modes of projection of spatial representations are common. However, the motor expression of affect is not noted as an index of psychic economy. The qualities of the affects present in the modes of assembly of the constructions, from the child to the adult, are not analyzed. - The superposition of the diagnostic and therapeutic approach is one of the common elements; the same tools are used in different settings. - No creator mentions the quality of the environment and the major traumatic upheavals, as well as their traces, to which the population was subjected during this period of the 20th century. Jung's works are frequently quoted and taken up as a basis for reflections in these two frameworks; the influence of Jungian theories appears relatively extensive at this time. DiscussionThe memory traces left by the traumas linked to the two World Wars are little taken into account among populations who were exposed to their damage, although the games reveal traces of it. Current research on autism and old age reflects ongoing in-depth studies. A reflection comes up several times in the writings of G. von Staabs that also crosses the two fields concerned by the Scenotest, that of psychotherapy and diagnostic investigation. The reference to construction is interesting to remember, in this period of destruction of the environment; on the contrary, the game and the analysis of its free associativity in children are left in the shadows. The work of Monika Boekholt concerning the Scenotest has made it possible to present a new method of interpreting acting processes by favoring the analysis of the different modes of representation of the body in thought, from perceptual sensory traces to the work of primary and secondary identifications. During our research with children and adolescents with autism using the Scenotest, we were surprised by the attention paid by the patients to the elements to be built which, are immediately invested in building a double bottom and/or reinforcing the edges of the playing area. ConclusionThis historical study sheds light on the new fields of epistemological and therapeutic research, which could be useful in designing relevant diagnostic and therapeutic devices.

ACQUIRED MOTOR DISABILITY AND RESILIENCE IN ADULTS SURVIVORS OF SEVERE TRAFFIC ACCIDENTS: A RETROSPECTIVE CLINICAL AND PROJECTIVE STUDY

The researcher addressed the study of evaluating the context of resilience in adults who, for over three (03) years, have experienced a severe traffic accident resulting in complete lower paralysis. Drawing on psychoanalytic exploration of resilience on one hand, and clinical and psychodynamic analysis of acquired motor disability in adults on the other hand, the concept of resilience was considered within the adopted definition as a dynamic context culminating in the integration of compounded shock (facing real threat of death and the shock linked to self-loss). This is followed by a rebound and identity reconstruction, ultimately leading to the resumption of life in a new direction, intertwined with a new body. Emphasis was placed on the idea that the context is influenced by the continuous interaction between each participant's internal psychological resources and external resources represented by their family and social environment, which they might have access to. To achieve this, the researcher resorted to qualitative analysis, employing semi-structured clinical interviews and projective techniques, including the Rorschach test and the Thematic Apperception Test (T.A.T). Furthermore, certain dimensions of psychological functioning were considered, such as the breadth of imaginative space, mentalization’s quality, the adaptive use of defense mechanisms and finally, the process of identity reconstruction. On the other hand, the external reality was approached through the potential encounter of the participants with a supporting person that assists them in regaining their re-narcissization. The results unveiled variations in the paths each participant took towards achieving resilience. This was linked to the diverse and effective interplay between their inner psychological reality and individual resources. The presence of a good resilience caregiver was noted to assist in surpassing the traumatic experience. A few participants displayed superficial resilience, while the results also demonstrated a diversity in the meaning assigned to the compounded traumatic event,including divine punishment, predestination, self-validation, and the discovery of new meaning in life

Preaching to Awaken the Woke

A confrontation is occurring within conservative congregations between conventional evangelical and ‘woke’ mindsets that directly affects the authority of the preacher. Two scenarios are presented from recent preacher experiences from within churches that ostensibly hold a conservative evangelical theological position. The particulars of this new Western cultural phenomenon are outlined using two postmodern philosophers to assist in making sense of these scenarios. Psychodynamic analysis shows that a knee-jerk response to ‘woke’ triggering distorts Christian community at deep levels. A similar cultural shift can be traced from the New Homiletic to the present via homileticians who suggest that preaching must accommodate itself to this culture’s justice claims to avoid confrontation. This results in a significant truncation of the scope of preaching authority. Two alternative strategic responses provide space for authoritative preaching: one revisits the theological template upon which catechesis is offered to new believers, replacing the ‘woke’ view of history with a more biblical eschatology. The other strategic response is to empower the whole congregation with alternative political processes derived from Matthew 18. This provides space for the illuminating work of the Spirit to again use preaching to transform the hearts and minds of believers regardless of their mindsets.

Review of Clash of Cultures: A Psychodynamic Analysis of Homer and the Iliad by Vincenzo Sanguineti, MD

Review of Clash of Cultures: A Psychodynamic Analysis of Homer and the Iliad by Vincenzo Sanguineti, MD

Beheadings and Self-Portraits in Caravaggio’s Work

The present study aims to investigate the psychological mechanisms beneath the change in the facial expression of some of the beheaded characters in Caravaggio’s works, starting from The Head of Medusa, from the artist’s youth, and reaching David with the Head of Goliath, a mature workpiece, searching the continuity between them through a series of self-portraits/ self-insertions of the artist in his work. The psychodynamic analysis is limited by the constitution of its practice to the study of the process of image production and the artistic imaginary, rather than to the investigation of man or the artist out of reach by means of figurative and symbolic language. This approach aims to highlight the drives of the unconscious, the structures of censorship and the technique of operating of the defensive mechanisms that ultimately could contribute to the production of such masterful images that are both seductive and confusing. The study incorporates and continues the contribution of authors such as Leo Bersani and Ulysse Dutoit who applied Laplanche’s theory of generalized seduction theory in the analysis of Caravaggio’s works, but also the mirror stage of Lacan and the masterful study of Winnicott regarding the reflection of the baby in the mimics of his mother, an unconscious unclear image that will stand forever for the perception of the self. The change of the affective resonance, expressiveness and emotional relating to violence is natural in the course of human evolution. While not even the artist Caravaggio can elude it, his work can illustrate by deflection these transforma­tions of the dynamics of the mind, it can raise new questions and open new perspectives of understanding the artistic drive.

Clash of Cultures: A Psychodynamic Analysis of Homer and the Iliad by Vincenzo Sanguineti

Clash of Cultures: A Psychodynamic Analysis of Homer and the Iliad by Vincenzo Sanguineti

The psychiatrist as gatekeeper in requests for assisted suicide: a qualitative study

L'étude explore les motifs des demandes de suicide assisté formulées par des patients hospitalisés dans un service somatique du Centre hospitalier universitaire Vaudois ainsi que les enjeux auxquels le psychiatre fait face. Méthode. L'étude se base sur une analyse rétrospective des rapports psychiatriques, concernant 18 patients de 65 ans ou plus qui ont fait une demande de suicide assisté. Nous avons identifié dans le matériel des motifs manifestes mais aussi des éléments latents, en prenant pour cadre la théorie de l'attachement et une lecture psychodynamique orientée autour des concepts de Moi idéal, Idéal du moi et Surmoi. Résultats. Différentes catégories de motifs de recours au suicide assisté ont été identifiées dans les demandes des patients. Au niveau latent, des indices d'attachement sécure et insécure, de sentiments sous-jacents de honte et d'abandon et plus rarement de culpabilité ont été relevés. Outre des limites liées à l'état du patient, le rôle de gatekeeper a un impact sur les possibilités d'aborder ou d'utiliser ces éléments de manière thérapeutique avec le patient. Le psychiatre mis dans un rôle de gatekeeper face au suicide assisté est dans une position peu confortable. Il est amené à penser comment tenir ce rôle tout en demeurant psychiatre de liaison. Abstract Background. In Switzerland, psychiatrists sometimes assume the role of gatekeepers when patients request assisted suicide, evaluating the patient's discernment and the existence of a possible psychiatric disorder interfering with the capacity to discern. Our study explores the motifs of requests for assisted suicide made by patients hospitalized in a somatic service of Lausanne University Hospital and the challenges faced by the psychiatrist as gatekeeper. We conducted a retrospective analysis of psychiatric reports concerning 18 patients aged 65 years or older who had requested assisted suicide. We aimed to identify both manifest and latent motifs in the patients' accounts, referring to the attachment theory and a psychodynamic analysis based on the concepts of the Ideal ego, the Ego ideal and the Superego. Different categories of motifs for assisted suicide requests were expressed by the patients. We also found indications of insecure and secure attachment, and underlying feelings of shame and abandonment, more rarely of guilt. In addition to limitations related to the patient's condition, the gatekeeper position limits the possibilities of addressing these issues or using them therapeutically with the patient. The psychiatrist' role as a gatekeeper in assisted suicide is uncomfortable. He or she must think about how to assume this role while remaining being a liaison psychiatrist.

Counselling the “split subject”: a psychodynamic analysis of career dissatisfaction

ABSTRACT The objective of our research is to analyse career dissatisfaction through the psychoanalytical lens of Jacques Lacan. Taking a multiple-case study approach, semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven male, senior managers working in the highly competitive technology industry. We found that respondents are defining satisfaction against a socially constructed career system that obliterates the concept of an agentic self. By grounding our qualitative investigation in the research fields of career and career dissatisfaction in the under-researched realm of Lacanian theory, we extend career theory to include a psychodynamic lens. We also contribute to practice by providing an alternative approach to career counselling that encourages the client to co-construct a sense of liberation and empowerment.

Anomalous Healers: Being a therapist or a patient? About counselling with two alternative therapists

Psychotherapy is a complex activity that requires a comprehensive training. Because of the emotional specificities of this job, supervision ensures the quality of the practice and psychological health for both the patient and the therapist. Alternative therapists can sometimes have difficulties with the transference that can occur in the therapeutic relationship with their clients. The supervision that can be offered by a clinical psychologist may be helpful in such cases, but presents particular stakes inherent to the fact of dealing with exceptional experiences. Two clinical situations from the CIRCEE, a French center dedicated to exceptional experiences, are presented below to illustrate the challenges of such a work. The psychodynamic analysis of these situations leads to a discussion about the interests and limitations of supervision and therapy. These two situations show that the profession of alternative therapist can sometimes find its origins in a process of traumatic progression. Exceptional experiences are attempts to symbolise traumatic events. Accompanying these therapists between supervision and psychotherapy opens the way to treat traumas. The therapist’s personal development, whether through supervision or psychotherapy, seems important to avoid secondary trauma due to the transferential processes.

The Establishment of a Clinic for Personality Modulation in Iran: A Novel Approach in Personality Psychiatry with a Dimensional Approach

The Establishment of a Clinic for Personality Modulation in Iran: A Novel Approach in Personality Psychiatry with a Dimensional Approach

A systems psychodynamic description of clinical psychologists’ role transition towards becoming organisational development consultants

Orientation: Clinical psychologists’ transition from practising in a clinical context to a large organisation implies an intensely experienced professional identity shift.Research purpose: To provide a systems psychodynamic description of the lived experiences of a group of clinical psychologists’ role transition towards becoming organisational development (OD) consultants.Motivation for the study: Although the role of clinical psychologists in organisations is theoretically explicated, limited research exists on their role transition experiences. Their lack of theoretical knowledge about and experience in organisational psychology make them vulnerable for exclusion and isolation.Research approach/design and method: A hermeneutic phenomenological research design using a collective case study, consisting of eight clinical psychologists, was used. The data gathering methods included a Listening Post and socio-analytic interviews. Systems psychodynamic data analysis was performed.Main findings: The manifesting themes related to experiences of diverse and intense anxiety, defensive structures, role, task, boundary and authorisation conflicts as well as solitary pilgrimages. Participants experienced an attack on their personal and professional identities, a sense of being overwhelmed, excluded and isolated from their colleagues and peers.Practical/managerial implications: The findings will facilitate clinical psychologists’ transition into OD roles and organisations’ awareness of their identity challenges.Contribution/value-add: Although employing clinical psychologists in OD roles is practised in many large organisations, the findings suggest that their transition into this role is underestimated in terms of emotional intensity.

Ambivalence, emprise, soutien. De la difficulté d’entourer le patient âgé à « suffisamment bonne » distance

ObjectivesIn the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, visits by relatives to Nursing Homes for the Elderly (EHPAD) and Long-Term Care Units (USLD) have been severely restricted or even prohibited in order to protect the residents and patients, especially the most vulnerable among them. This situation has revived the debate around the place and role of the relational entourage in caring for the elderly. The relevance of family ties in supporting the narcissistic and objectal cathexis of the elderly has thus gained recognition. There is, however, the risk of an emerging form of uniformization and idealization, which the present article seeks to address by highlighting some aspects of the intrapsychic and inter-relational dynamics that drive the inherent complexity of those bonds. MethodThe authors seek to identify the psychic processes involved in varying forms of presence and of motivation of “natural caregivers” and “professional caregivers.” Their approach is based on a psychodynamic analysis of the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic and the changes induced in the links between the patient or elderly resident and his or her entourage. Complex movements fueling the dynamics involved in these links are revealed. A clinical vignette based on research in clinical psychology and psychopathology is provided. ResultsThe pandemic context showed the creative strategies devised by relatives and carers to maintain forms of presence and links “at a distance” with isolated and confined elderly people. However, the various configurations of these arrangements also highlighted the tensions, sometimes tinged with rivalry, in the negotiations that inform the respective places and roles of family members and professionals around the subjects concerned. The caregiver's position is not self-evident and presupposes an involvement that cannot be construed on a merely functional and behavioral level. Rather, it requires a need for psychic work drawing on the identificatory and projective movements inevitably mobilized in closeness with the subject, without alienating oneself. Ambivalence, empathy, and support can then be deployed, where excessive control, covert hostility, and over-excitement are constant threats to such a necessarily close relationship. This disposition in the caregiver also encounters a singular psychic disposition on the part of the person being helped, informed by a lively conflictuality. This sometimes takes on surprising undertones, as in the case of Georges, an 86-year-old patient, where the caregiver as a “close-human-being” was fully recognized only on the condition that the relationship of help and care supported, sustained, and nourished unconscious masochistic needs. DiscussionThese perspectives are an invitation to ponder the plurality of figures of the “close-human-being” and to find one's place in a psychic and relational economy where the self-preserving and psychosexual registers are in constant interplay. They also underline the need to focus on working, individually and collectively, on the quality of the entourage's presence. This is all mediated by a complex organizational pattern anchored in the potential for reciprocal support between the family group, the caregiving group, and the institutional setting. ConclusionThese various propositions help clarifythe components of the psychic conflictuality implied, on the one hand, in the horizontal tensions existing between the various members of the familial and professional circle and, on the other hand, in the vertical tensions inherent in intergenerational dynamics. The elderly are far from being passive objects in this and their contribution is essential. The concern to ensure the close involvement of the elderly person's relatives and foster the quality of the ensuing exchanges is laudable, indeed vital. This should not, however, lead us to downplay the crucial and singular place the elderly subjects themselves occupy in individual, family, and societal dynamics, as full citizens, members of their relatives’ entourage, and essential figures in the establishment of the great psychic organizing functions that structure the difference in generations and the psychic processes of identification.

Psychodynamic Analysis of Early Childhood Teachers and their Professional Development: Evidence from Pakistan

Psychodynamic Analysis of Early Childhood Teachers and their Professional Development: Evidence from Pakistan

Clinique des expériences de mort imminente : du vécu agonistique aux formes extrêmes de symbolisation

AimWe propose an analysis of Near-Death Experiences (NDE) in order to better understand the psychic processes that characterize them, their aftereffects, and how to accompany the people who report them. MethodOur paper begins with a brief review of the literature concerning NDEs and their different explanatory models. A phenomenological and psychodynamic analysis of research interviews conducted with ten people who report an NDE is then proposed. We aim to clarify the context of the emergence of the NDE, its subjective inscription, and its aftereffects by exploring the psychic life of the subject beyond the experience itself. ResultsNDEs appear as a specific psychic solution associated with different forms of traumatic experiences. The components of the NDE would express the process of symbolization of these experiences according to a gradual response depending on the depth of the experience. Several phenomenological elements of the NDE (out-of-body experience, life review, and encounter with a spiritual being) would be, more precisely, the consequence of the unfolding of the process of symbolization by a self-representation of the reflexive processes as well as a dissolution of the ego. These processes frequently engender profound psychic reorganizations whose evolution will depend on the transformational potential of the experience, the full effect of which requires a passage through an “other-subject” object. DiscussionNDEs appear as a complex phenomenological constellation of biological, psychic, and cultural factors. They represent an experiential organizer that brings together scattered phenomenological elements into a coherent whole. When certain conditions of the experience and its subsequent elaboration are met, NDEs induce transformational processes that sometimes give rise to subjective metamorphoses. NDEs thus appear as an experience of psychic reanimation that allows the psyche to be “resuscitated” in parallel with the sometimes simultaneous resuscitation of the body. ConclusionNDEs represent an extreme form of paranormal solution whose occurrence is favored by certain personality factors and by a traumatic context. During this experience, the symbolization process and the subjective appropriation of experiences left behind induce potential transformations of the subject in her/his relationship to her/himself and to others. Like any experience at the limits of the symbolization process, NDEs require an encounter with “another” in order to fully express their transformational potential. Clinicians confronted with these experiences should therefore accompany their integration with negative capability and openness.

Pandemic Covid-19: Psychodynamic analysis of a global trauma. Clinical considerations pre \ post Lock down.

Meanwhile the COVID-19 crisis challenges the fabric of our society, we examine through our psychological science how this global trauma has affected and is affecting our mental and physical health, how we perceive the world and how we interact with others.
 This contribution is part of the scientific landscape as an aid to understanding the social impact, aimed at interpreting the outcome of the pandemic and creating models for predicting the psychosocial consequences of the pandemic in the world.
 We divided the covid-19 event into three temporal phases: Pre Covid-19 Era, Inside Covid-19 Era and Post Covid-19 Era and discussed in each of this hypothetical Era on the perception of global threats and traumas researches, on defensive mechanisms and infodemia, information contagion, on the psychological effects of quarantine and social isolation through the lens of polivagal and psychotraumatological theory, and then addressed collective grief, isolating predictive and resilient factors, scientific communication, stress and effect management.
 This logic has highlighted how urgent action is needed to mitigate the potentially devastating effects of COVID-19. Many of the implications described here may also be relevant to future pandemics and public health crises.
 It’s time to strengthen our mental health system in preparation for the inevitable challenges triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, through gradual care and the practice of providing the most reliable information and the most effective and least resource-intensive treatment.

The psychodynamic analysis of work

ABSTRACT This article provides an overview of the psychodynamic analysis of work associated primarily with Christophe Dejours. It explores briefly the roots of psychodynamics in the psychopathology of work that emerged as a field in France in the 1950s. It then goes on to look at the ways in which psychodynamics has proposed a critical framework for analysing the damaging consequences of isolation, atomisation and the erosion of collective solidarity in the neoliberal era. One of the central premises of psychodynamics is the idea that ‘real’ work often remains invisible. Work is, in this sense, enigmatic, since the investments made by individuals in their work may be expressed in drives and forms of sublimation of which they are not consciously aware. Psychodynamics has been criticised for being complicit with managerial agendas that seek to promote wellbeing with the ulterior motive of depoliticising the workplace. However, psychodynamics is not a ‘victimology’, and Dejours has raised important questions about work as both a subjective experience and as the main socialising force in contemporary society.

Psychotraumatology of Images in Gender Dysphoria

Background:The study proposes a psychodynamic analysis of the traumatic role of mental images, that can be expressed by many conditions; in phenomenology, the psychic relationship is meant as the relationship between subject and object. The analysis is aimed at understanding how representations are relevant.Objective:Representations are distinguished as the possibility of intrinsic trauma and as inherently deferred in the conflict between sexual-biological identity and gender-psychological identity; our work aims to highlight how internal images affect adaptation processes.Method:The analysis involves the study of 10 Rorschach protocols of Gender Dysphoria subjects in Male to Female transition; the protocols are analyzed through the studies of N. Raush de Traubenberg, with reference to the Self and Body; a psycho-traumatological and phenomenological analysis of imaginal experiences will be proposed.Results:From the analysis emerges the presence of Self and Body representations affected by a partial and fragmentary prevalence of contents, the presence of psychotraumatic phenomena associated to the processes of introjection and identification of mental representations.Conclusion:The knowledge of the presence of affected representations and psycho-traumatological outcomes would be useful for a psychodiagnostic and psychotherapeutic purpose, intended for the implementation of the adaptation process.

Aggression in the academic workplace: a psychodynamic analysis of social work

Aiming to promote quality collegial relationships in tertiary education, this theoretical study draws on the peer-reviewed literature to provide a psychodynamic analysis of workplace aggression in the social work discipline. Because the study assists academics to identify their aggressive practices and the aggressive practices of their colleagues, the findings can be of relevance to other practice-based disciplines. Elaborating on the causes and effects of the disciplinary, institutional and individual forms of aggression, this study identifies the avoidance of the emotional pain in work with clients as the main reason behind the active or passive–aggressive behaviours in the discipline. Academics act out this defensive manoeuvre through denying the existence of knowledge gaps in the discipline, denying the inextricable link between empirical research and theories of practice, teaching exclusively theories unsupported by empirical studies, and resisting to set boundaries on active and passive aggression. The study proposes the advancement of research-into-practice mindedness in social work schools, the requirement that prospective social work academics gain considerable practice experience before entering academia, the need for academic leadership positions to require peer-reviewed publications in both teaching and practice and the need for Schools to publish a volume of empirical research to be accredited as providers of social work education.