Psychoanalytic Work in East Africa

Psychoanalytic Work in East Africa presents a unique insight into psychoanalytic practice with urban populations in Eastern Africa.

Barbara Saegesser describes her psychoanalytic work in different East African locations and in a wide range of contexts. Each chapter considers a particular context, from work in general hospitals and psychiatric hospitals and with children in orphanages, to maternity wards with women who have been subjected to genital mutilation. Saegesser reflects on questions of gender, religion and working across cultures throughout, and considers the benefits of this approach for people who have not previously encountered psychoanalysis.

Psychoanalytic Work in East Africa will be of great interest to psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists looking to learn more about working with people in complex, challenging or dangerous situations, across cultures, and in areas where psychoanalysis is not at all known.

Barbara Saegesser is a training analyst with the Swiss Psychoanalytical Society and also with IPA. She was president of the commission treating ethical problems in the Swiss Society of Psychoanalysis and has worked in East Africa since 2005, in a wide range of contexts including orphanages, shelters, psychiatric hospitals and on maternity department with many victims of female genital mutilation.