Dr Susan Mizen

Dr. Mizen presents her theory of a neurobiological and developmental pathway for symbolisation and its failures in those with borderline presentations.

Her ‘Relational Affective Hypothesis’ describes how neurobiological mechanisms promote mother infant interaction launching a developmental process through which the ability to symbolise emerges. Triangulation, which is key to developing the capacity to symbolise, may fail through relational or the psychodynamic defence mechanism of projective identification leading to a concrete emotional world and a disordered sense of physical and psychological identity.

The result is the emergence of two conflicted states of mind and patterns of interpersonal relating which give rise to the affective instability and impulsiveness of people with a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder and a disordered sense of what belongs to whom.

Video lecture with slides – 45 mins

About the Speaker

Dr Susan Mizen is a Consultant Medical Psychotherapist and Jungian Analyst. Having trained at the Cassel Hospital and the Society of Analytical Psychology, she worked as a Consultant Medical Psychotherapist at Charing Cross Hospital Fulham before moving to Devon where she has developed a service for patients with Severe and Complex Personality Disorder working with a therapeutic team using a psychoanalytic model in a day and outpatient setting.