Seminar Non-Member - Panos Vythoulkas

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The lecture examines staff scapegoating within NHS forensic mental health services as a complex, situational and largely unconscious group phenomenon. Rather than understanding scapegoating simply as prejudice, bullying or individual projection, it frames it as a collective response to institutional anxiety, rivalry, shame, threat and organisational strain. Using the English idiom of being “sent to Coventry”, the lecture conceptualises workplace exile as a gradual and potentially reversible process through which valued colleagues may come to be constructed as difficult, contaminating or expendable. Drawing on psychoanalytic and organisational theory, historical analogies and composite clinical-organisational vignettes, it situates contemporary NHS dynamics within longer traditions of collective expulsion, including the Greek pharmakos and the Hebrew scapegoat “for Azazel”. Particular attention is given to the forensic NHS context, where high-risk work, public protection anxieties, resource scarcity, professional hierarchy, trauma exposure and reputational pressures can intensify defensive group processes. The lecture also considers how wider UK sociopolitical pressures over the past decade, including austerity, Brexit, COVID-19, #MeToo, Black Lives Matter, war, the cost-of-living crisis, anti-migration politics, social media, misinformation and artificial intelligence, may shape organisational dynamics and influence who becomes available for blame. The presentation invites reflection on more reparative, accountable and psychologically safe practices that can support belonging within an increasingly diverse forensic NHS workforces. Dr Panos Vythoulkas is the Lead Perinatal Clinical Psychologist at the North London NHS Foundation Trust, and a Doctoral Candidate in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy at the University of Exeter. He is a non-UK trained clinician with experience across forensic and specialist mental health settings in England since 2016. His work spans clinical practice, staff support and organisational roles, including previous experience as a Freedom to Speak Up Advocate. His doctoral research explores the relationship between early childhood maltreatment, primary emotions, identification with the aggressor and interpersonal violence perpetration.