“Holding” was first described by Winnicott, a British physician, in the 1940s and 1950s. And to this day, physicians use their training and skills to provide a holding environment for their clients. A thoughtful diagnosis can validate a client’s experience and offer a framework for understanding distress. Careful prescribing can help people manage distress, allowing people to improve their self-regulation and better engage with the world. On some level, psychiatrists have more ways to construct a holding environment than anyone.

And yet, we don’t always get it right. We’ll discuss how psychiatry and the medical establishment can hold too tightly in some cases, trapping people in stigmatizing diagnoses and complicated medication regimens. In some cases, revising a diagnosis, or de-prescribing can be acts of holding, too. We’ll also discuss the ways the medical establishment has allowed people to fall, uncaught, through cracks in the system. In this session, we’ll do our best to walk the line between holding too tightly and letting go.