The Stuff of New Selves: Insights and Tensions Treating Psychosis in a Therapeutic Community

This is one of three presentations given at the Residential and Community Treatment of Psychosis conference, organized by Ellenhorn, Gould Farm, and the Erikson Institute at Austen Riggs Center.
Brett Thatcher LICSW, MTS (he/him) is a clinical social worker and psychotherapist at Gould Farm in the Berkshires and in private practice. He has completed post-graduate training in intersubjective psychotherapy and mentalization-based treatment. He has presented professionally on issues of gender and sexuality, trauma, and intersubjectivity.
In this presentation, using Gould Farm’s treatment program as a case study, Brett illustrates principles and practices supporting an approach to psychosis that takes seriously the complexity and humanity of individuals with psychotic experiences. Such a stance requires a great deal of respect for symptoms as both meaning-making and self-making efforts. Thinking with Saketopoulou’s (2022, 2023) recent interventions in traumatophilia, the second half of the presentation will highlight tensions that arise in current approaches to psychosis in mental health systems and offer starting points for reimagining our practices. The critical analysis will consider the notion of recovery and our collective fantasies of cure, the equating of neoliberal coherence with health, and what psychotic experiences might (re)teach us about our world.