Patrick Casement

Patrick Casement is a British psychoanalyst and author of multiple books and journal articles on contemporary psychoanalytic technique. He has been described as a pioneer in the relational approaches to psychoanalysis and psychotherapy by Andrew Samuels, Professor of Analytical Psychology. received a Gradiva award for its contribution to psychoanalysis, and his book Learning Along the Way: Further Reflections on Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy was listed in the top 100 psychotherapy books of all time by BookAuthority.

Casement is best known for his Learning from... series. His works have been translated into 21 languages and utilised by psychoanalysts and professionals from other related disciplines. Burton highlights how Casement

Casement was deeply influenced by Winnicott's ideas including 'The Use of an Object'. Burton Casement references Winnicott's metaphor of the spatula as a guiding influence on this aspect of his clinical approach, in which a protective space is cultivated for the patient to ‘play’, within which, the patient's process can unfold with minimal impingement from the analyst.

Casement has written about a risk of applying psychoanalytic theory too confidently or of analytic sureness/certainty. Casement has also cautioned against preconceptions that steer the analytic process, and has advocated a need for analysts to be led by the process emerging between analyst and patient in the consulting room. In this respect, Casement states that there is a need for the analyst to regularly monitor the analytic space for possible impingements that the analyst may bring to, or impose on, the therapeutic relationship. It is within this regard, that Casement has outlined the therapeutic utility of his concepts of internal supervision and trial identification.

In 2019, Casement published ‘Learning Along the Way''', which is a collection of his previously published papers and other writings from the past fifty years. He also has a mini book in process with Aeon Books Ltd, Credo? Religion and Psychoanalysis.

Personal life Casement is married since 1966 and has two daughters. He retired from private practice in 2005, but still works as a supervisor to a number of analysts, psychologists and therapists.