My Psychoanalytic Story: with Helen Morgan

"I think there are people around, just like there's always been people around, that want to take the profession into the 21st century without losing what we've got that’s valuable."

Throughout this year we’ll be releasing a series of interviews with BPC Registrants that are approaching or in retirement. These interviews reflect upon a variety of psychoanalytic journeys and as a result, communicate that no one psychoanalytic career is the same. Each story we unveil throughout the year highlights some fascinating milestones, professional challenges, institutional shifts and psychoanalytic revelations.

Welcome to our first instalment, where we speak to Jungian Analyst, writer and former editor of BPC magazine ‘New Associations’, Helen Morgan. Read BPC Comms Manager Niamh’s conversation with Helen, who is also the recent recipient of a BPC Lifetime Achievement Award, that traces professional highs, institutional challenges and retirement reflections.

Niamh: Can you tell us your name, where you’re based and a bit about your professional background?

Helen: My name is Helen Morgan, I’m based in North-West London and have been for many years. I started life out studying physics and then went on to teach physics and general science at a school in Bristol. It was at the time of the raising of the school leaving age from 15 to 16. So, there were a lot of very disgruntled young people who were hoping to leave at 15 who then had to stay on until 16. I found when I was teaching that I was much more interested in the children themselves than I was in whether they understood electricity or not. So, I moved into working with children with emotional or educational problems. I then went travelling on the hippie trail with a couple of friends for a year and half over to Japan, which was brilliant but I didn’t quite know what to do when I came back.

So, I found an advert for somewhere called the Cotswold Community and I applied. It’s no longer there, but it was a Therapeutic Community based on Winnicottian lines for boys who were considered ‘unintegrated’, they were extremely damaged kids who couldn’t manage foster care or adoption. It was a trial by fire, I stayed there for four years, and I learned so much. I got really interested in trying to understand how these children were. So, I decided to move to London and train at what was then called the BAP, the British Association of Psychotherapists and I did a Jungian training. I moved into adult mental health and worked in a Therapeutic Community organisation called the Richmond Fellowship where I worked with adults whilst I was training. I went on doing that for a little while. After I qualified, I gradually built up a private practice and that ended up becoming my main occupation.

Niamh: There’s always such a variety of different ways that people come into the psychoanalytic profession, it’s fascinating. Can you talk more about your changes in practice? For example, when it came to moving from group work in classrooms and therapeutic communities to your individual work in your practice with adults?

Helen: Some Therapeutic Communities are still around, but not anywhere near like they were and I think they were a brilliant concept. It was a big shift in psychiatry. Ways of thinking about and working in groups was very important.

When I was interviewed for the training, I was asked if I had a relevant degree. I said “Yes, physics.” because I thought physics is about the basic building blocks, the atom and that has parallels to thinking about the individual. I saw chemistry as being more like studying the group and biology like society, I wanted to get back to understanding what was going on in the individual mind. I’ve always been interested in groups and social perspectives, but I wanted to start with the individual building block which is the personal psyche. Of course in that, what I was really trying to understand was myself. And I think – it’s an old adage in the profession – I told myself I was going into psychoanalysis in order to train and it was some years before I realised I was actually training so I could allow myself to have an analysis.

Niamh: Alongside this, you also had a lot of involvement in many psychoanalytic organisations over the years, in a plethora of roles, did that affect or inform your practice? Did it affect what you thought about the profession you were in?

Helen: I remember when I finished my training, I swore to myself I’d have nothing more to do with this profession which I thought was arrogant, internal looking and unable to manage the societal stuff. So, it was a bit bizarre that I ended up getting involved as I did. I suppose I thought, “Well, if you want to change things then maybe you’ve got to get into the middle of it”.

A series of events led me to chairing the BAP, this was before it merged with the Lincoln and the LCP to become the British Psychotherapy Foundation (BPF). It was at a time too when the psychoanalytic group in the BAP were applying to the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA). I was having to chair the organisation through that and it was a very troubled time.

After I stepped down as chair of the BAP, Julian Lousada, who was Chair of the BPC at the time, asked me to Chair what was called the ‘Future Strategy Working Group’. This group looked at how the BPC developed around issues of race, class and sexuality. Then when he stepped down as Chair, I ended up becoming chair of the BPC myself. I seemed to be getting into these positions of influence, partly to see how much I could try and change what I thought wasn’t right or was lacking in the profession. I made some change but nowhere near as much as I would’ve liked.

After I stepped down as Chair of the BPC, I was asked to take on the role of Editor of New Associations. Also, in my own organisation, the British Jungian Analytic Association, we have been completely rethinking our training and Jane Johnson and I co-chair the New Approach to Theory group where the aim is to bring a more socio-political critique to our theories.

Niamh: It’s interesting to hear about the amount of professional change you witnessed and were involved in during your career. Did you find that to be the most challenging part of your professional life or were there challenges in your private practice work that felt particularly trickier?

Helen: Well, in my own private practice, for quite a long time after I qualified I had a feeling, which I think is quite common, like I really don’t know what I’m doing, like a bit of an impostor.

“Have I had the right training, are other people doing it much better?” I don’t know when it was, but I got to a point where I just thought: “This seems to be alright, people seem to be developing.” And then a certain confidence came, certainly when I became a training analyst for my organisation and worked quite intensively. I enjoyed that, I felt fairly grounded in that work.

The organisational work, I seemed to be alright with. There were some very, very difficult political times and conflicts that had to be managed that I hated. I didn’t enjoy that at all and there was a lot to contain at times. I could get very frustrated with, as I say, the arrogance in this profession, and there’s also this hierarchy that I find really frustrating. But I also worked with some very good people, which I’ve really enjoyed.

Alongside all this was my interest, that I developed from the consulting room as well as in my personal life and more general work life, in issues around race. Which ended up with me writing a book around ‘whiteness’ because I was trying to explore my own whiteness and also observations from within the profession around race. I was constantly troubled by why so few people of colour wanted to come and join this profession and I was getting tired of a very familiar pattern when we tried to address it in the organisation. I think that’s changing a little. But, as it is in any profession, it’s an ongoing problem.

Niamh: How much did peer-to-peer work and supervision factor into your development over the years? Was there any pieces of advice or guidance you felt particularly helped you gain your confidence?

Helen: The thing about this work is we’re very, isolated. You’re on your own, in a room with this other human being trying to think through what to do. So, supervision has always been important. But to me, I think quite an important change was when I moved from individual supervision to group supervision. I think hearing myself, not just receiving help but helping another person, that was very useful.

When I started to become a supervisor there was such a sense of “Ah yes, I think I can help here. There’s some wisdom building up through experience that I can offer” and certainly when I was teaching. I think it was less about what I received, but more about what I was able to start giving to colleagues, as well as receive of course.

I think that was that was quite important, to just to hear myself say some quite sensible things occasionally that the trainee or the colleague found helpful. I remember that people used to say to me, once you qualify, that’s when you start to really learn.

Niamh: Given your experience and uniquely broad view into your profession, how do you feel about the world of psychoanalysis now? Given all the changes you tried to make, will you retire from the profession believing it’s capable of change?

Helen: I hope so, I think there are elements to this profession which I’ve written about elsewhere which makes change more difficult, when you think we should be more open to change. There’s an arrogance that really gets in the way. I do see changes in parts, I think we’re getting a more varied type of people coming into the profession. I think there’s a very important line to walk which holds onto the valuable things about what we do and yet also allows change and self-examination.

Of course, I go the other way now, I hear things being said by the younger people in the profession and think, “Oh wait a minute, hold on. There’s something worth holding onto there.” Which probably comes across to them as arrogant, but we’ve all got to keep working it out for ourselves.

So, for example, in my clinical work, what I have learned is boundaries are very key. I very rarely break them. I’m more and more convinced of the need for them. I also think the idea of a career progression is really important. Although, how do you do that without getting very hierarchical, it’s a difficult one to do.

Also, it’s a voluntary profession, you can’t tell people how they should be, apart from the certain things that, say, the BPC has in terms of professional development and that sort of thing. People have to want to change. I think there are people around, just like there’s always been people around, that want to take the profession into the 21st century without losing what we’ve got that’s valuable.

Helen Morgan and Marchelle Farrell: In Conversation

For Black History Month 2024, we invited author and psychoanalyst Marchelle Farrell to talk to New Associations Editor Helen Morgan. Read their conversation that spans topics of colonialism, gardening, whiteness and climate change.
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