An inherent tension exists in the history of psychoanalysis and its applications between the concepts of freedom and security. In Managed Lives, this tension is explored from the point of view of therapeutic experience. Set against the background of Freud's contested legacy, the book examines ways of managing oneself under psychiatric supervision, in the analytic encounter and in the emotional and moral contexts of everyday life.

Through a series of detailed case studies Steven Groarke addresses therapeutic experience as a formation of managed society, examining the...