DR SUE MIZEN on ‘The Relational Affective Model; a Neuropsychoanalytic Treatment for Severe and Complex Narcissistic Disorder’
London Neuropsychoanalysis Group
The Relational Affective Model; a neuropsychoanalytic treatment for severe and complex narcissistic disorder
Abstract: The Relational Affective Model has been developed from clinical observation of patients with severe personality disorder attending an intensive psychotherapeutic treatment programme in the NHS. The model draws upon the neuroscience literature to describe a pathway through which affect is symbolised in a relational context. The disruption of this pathway through neurological or relational deficit or psychodynamic defence is outlined to account for the failures of symbolisation observed clinically. The narcissistic defences of attributive and acquisitive projective identification described by Herbert Rosenfeld and Ron Britton provide an account of the disruption in the experience of self and other and of the boundary of the self which are common to these disorders and their associated comorbidities including eating disorders and psychosomatic disorders. The disordered pattern of relating to the body as other and the implications for psychotherapeutic practice are summarised
Bio: Dr Mizen is a Consultant Psychiatrist in Psychotherapy. Having trained at the Cassel Hospital in West London she was a Consultant at Charing Cross Hospital in Fulham before taking up her post in Devon. She undertook her analytic training with the Society of Analytical Psychology in London. She wrote the business case for the Devon Partnership Mental Health Trust Specialist Personality Disorder Service obtaining funding for a day treatment and outpatient psychodynamic psychotherapy programme for people with severe and complex Personality Disorder who would otherwise be treated in locked placements. She is the clinical lead for this service and over the past five years has developed the Relational Affective Model which is in use in the service. She is undertaking a neuroscience PhD at Exeter University to test the hypothesis which underpins the clinical model. She is the Chair of the Psychotherapy Faculty at the Royal College of Psychiatrists. In addition to her NHS practice she continues to practice as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist in Private Practice.