Conference The Political Mind

The Political Mind Seminars 2016.
British Psychoanalytic Society
London.





The Political Mind


The role of the unconscious in political and social life.

A series of seminars on psychoanalysis and politics in the summer term by the British Psychoanalytic Society, London.
To be held in Central London.

Tuesdays April – July 2016
8.15 – 9.45 pm

Introduction

Although he was never directly involved in politics himself, Sigmund Freud's contribution to political thinking cannot be overstated. He was fascinated with the way that our internal conflicts as individuals have outward consequences in the world at large – and many of his ideas laid down the basis of what has become an enormous body of thought on how society works.

He questioned the origin and structure of society in "Totem and Taboo”. He discussed illusions and dogmas in "The Future of an Illusion" and "Civilization and its Discontents”. He was critical of some aspects of Bolshevism in the "New Introductory Lecture on Psychoanalysis", and he described the foundation of a people in "Moses and Monotheism".

In this series of talks with leading psychoanalysts, we invite you to explore these influential theories with us, and discover how they can illuminate our understanding of political and social conflict around the world.

It’s interesting to imagine what Freud would have made of the world today, a time of polarising politics, social shifts and radical movements.

In “Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego” he explored crowd psychology, arguing that becoming a member of a crowd serves to unlock the unconscious mind. This happens as the super-ego, or moral center of consciousness, is displaced by the larger crowd and the charisma of leaders.

In the agency of the superego, our conscious moral centre, Freud attributed values, ideals, and imperatives associated with morality and society. He also analysed the effects of repressed sexuality, naming "civilised sexual morality" as the source of "the nervous illness of modern times."

Freud argued that a combination of forces in our psyche – the sexual drive, the death drive, and the instinct for mastery – have been inescapable drivers of change throughout humanity's development.

And they’re especially relevant to a discussion of contemporary issues such as racism, terrorism, totalitarian thinking, NHS, the market economy, ecology, gender and sexuality. Scroll down to see the range of subjects we’ll be addressing in our programme.

Many of Freud's ideas intersect with political thinkers such as Machiavelli, Hobbes, Marx, and Weber. For example, the radical rejection of all forms of illusion, the will to lucidity based on a flexible rationality, the dismantling of connections within communities, the emphasis on the autonomy and responsibility of the individual subject.

Over time, many other psychoanalysts have continued to contribute to political and social theory. Donald Winnicott argues that the development of our character is based on our environment, particularly our early relationships in life. That society provides the factors that support or undermine these early relationships – and that pathological or criminal acts can be seen as external manifestations of our internal conflicts.

Melanie Klein reiterated Freud's belief that the human is riven with conflict, and how aggression and libido play themselves out in the individual, the family, society and world politics. She emphasised the need to recognise guilt and make reparation, and argued that to achieve this there must be a difficult integration of love and hate – a lifelong struggle that has its equivalents in social and political scenarios throughout the world.

These theories on the mind provide the basis for psychoanalysts to understand political and social conflict that cause such distress and anxiety in our world.

I hope you’ll join us for what’s set to be a brilliant set of lectures, discussions and debates about the nature of violence, both in the mind and in wider society. To book your place, just click here.


Tuesday's April-July 2016
8.15-9.45 pm


Chair and Seminar leader
David Morgan

Introduction
April
12. Philip Stokoe

"Further thoughts on the Impact of Power on the Mind of the Politician"

19. Dr David Bell
"Everything is possible and anything is permitted: psychoanalytic reflections on the work of Hannah Arendt"

26. Dr Jonathan Sklar
"The European Unconscious in Traumatic Times: Some Psychodynamics in Hate and Prejudice"

May
3. Sally Weintrobe
"Climate Change in the Culture of Uncare"

10. Prof Bob Hinshelwood
"The value of things.Political alienation and psychoanalytic action."

17. Prof Stephen Frosh
"Psychoanalysis,Colonialism, Racism"

24. Prof Catalina Bronstein
"Working in Fear: Memories of Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis during the Argentinian Dictatorship"


Half term

June
7. Lord John Alderdice
"Fundamentalism"

14. Ruth McCall
"Psychoanalysis and Feminism. A Modern Perspective."

21. Prof Stephen Groarke
"The antisocial elements in society: psychoanalysis and government."

28. Prof Josh Cohen
"Psychoanalysis, Politics and Indifference'."

July
5. Prof Michael Rustin
"What's Wrong and What's Right with Money"

12. Prof David Tuckett
"Conviction and Cooperation: Facing the Problems We Can’t Solve by Ourselves.”

19. Margot Waddell
"The Challenge of Change: Psychoanalysis and contemporary culture"



Lord John Alderdice
Is an academic, politician and retired consultant psychiatrist in psychoanalytical psychotherapy, he was also until very recently the Convenor of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords. He has applied his psychological understanding to analyzing and dealing with terrorism and violent political conflict in various parts of the world, but especially in the Middle East and in his native Northern Ireland where he was one of the negotiators of the 1998 Belfast Agreement. Currently he isChairman of the Centre for Democracy and Peace Building , based in Belfast, and Director of the Centre for the Resolution of Intractable Conflict, and Senior Research Fellow at Harris Manchester College, Oxford. He is a former Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly, a former Commissioner with the Independent Monitoring Commission (monitoring paramilitary and security force activity in Ireland) and the former President of Liberal International, the global family of some 120 liberal political parties.


Dr David Bell Psychoanalyst
Is a psychoanalyst, Fellow BPAS
Consultant Psychiatrist ,Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. Former President British Psychoanalytic Society ; 2012-3 Professorial Fellow, Birkbeck College London
Books: 'Psychoanalysis and Culture: a kleinian perspective' , 'Reason and Passion' ,'Paranoia', 'Living on the Border'
Papers include: "Primitive Mind of State ", (a psychoanalytic critique of the attacks on welfare) "Mental illness and its treatment today", "Is Truth an illusion"
Other contributions on a wide range of subjects including psychoanalytic theory and technique, NHS , socio-political theory , literature.
One of the UKs leading psychiatric experts in Asylum/Human Rights


Prof. Catalina Bronstein is President-elect to the British Psychoanalytic Society and is a Visiting Professor in the Psychoanalysis Unit, Research Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology within the Division of Psychology and Language Sciences (PALS) at University College, London. She is a Training Analyst and Supervisor and a Fellow of the British Psycho-Analytical Society. She is an adult and child psychoanalyst and a member of the Association of Child Psychotherapists. She is the former London editor of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis and a member of the Executive of the College of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis. She has written many psychoanalytic papers and edited 'Kleinian Theory. A Contemporary Perspective' and co-edited 'The New Klein-Lacan Dialogues'.


Prof. Josh Cohen is a Psychoanalyst Fellow BPAS Professor of Modern Literary Theory, Goldsmiths University of London. Author of many articles and books on psychoanalysis, literature and cultural theory, including How to Read Freud and most recently, " The Private Life: Why We Remain in the Dark.

Prof. Stephen Frosh

Prof. Stephen Frosh
is Pro-Vice-Master of Birkbeck, University of London, and Professor in the Department of Psychosocial Studies there. He was previously Vice Dean and Consultant Clinical Psychologist at the Tavistock Clinic, London. He is the author of many books and papers on psychosocial studies and on psychoanalysis, including Hauntings: Psychoanalysis and Ghostly Transmissions; A Brief Introduction to Psychoanalytic Theory; Psychoanalysis Outside the Clinic;Hate and the Jewish Science: Anti-Semitism, Nazism and Psychoanalysis; For and Against Psychoanalysis; After Wordsand The Politics of Psychoanalysis.

Prof Steven Groarke is a psychoanalyst member of the British Psycho-Analytical Society and Professor of Social Thought at RoehamptonUniversity. His most recent book, Managed Lives: Psychoanalysis, Inner Security and the Social Order, was published in 2014.

Prof. Bob Hinshelwood
is a Psychoanalyst Fellow BPAS
Bob Hinshelwood is Professor in the Centre for Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex, and previously Director of the Cassel Hospital. He has written extensively on psychoanalytic practice and theory, including A Dictionary of Kleinian Thought (1989), Clinical Klein (1993), and more recently, Research on the Couch (2013), and Bion’s Sources (2013, edited with Nuno Torres). He has also written on the application of psychoanalysis to social science (Observing Organisations, edited with Wilhelm Skogstad 2000); and on racism.

Ruth McCall
Is a Psychoanalyst Fellow BPAS
Hon Treasurer BPAS. Formerly Tutor UCL MSc Theoretical Psychoanalytic Studies.
Trustee DW Winnicott Trust
Previous career in television and film, winner of Queens Award for Industry

David Morgan
Is a psychoanalyst
Fellow BPAS and BPA.
Co-editor with Stan Ruszczynski of Violence,Perversion and Delinquency. Editor of The Political Mind( in press) Consultant Psychotherapist WBUK. Consultant to socio-political organisations. Director of Public Interest Psychology.(PiP).

Prof Michael Rustin
Is Professor of Sociology at the University of East London and Visiting Professor at the Tavistock Clinic and the University of Essex. His writings include “The Good Society and the Inner World” (1991);
“Reason and Unreason: Psychoanalysis, Science, Politics” (2001); “The Inner World of Doctor Who” (with Iain MacRury) (2013); “Social Defences against Anxiety” (edited with David Armstrong) (2015); After Newliberalism? the Kilburn Manifesto”, edited with Stuart Hall and Doreen Massey (2015). He is an Associate of the BPAS.

Dr Jonathan Sklar
FRCPsych. Training analyst, and Fellow BPAS working in full time private practice.Member of the Board of the IPA Formerly head of Psychotherapy department Addenbrookes Hospital. Former Vice President European Psychoanalytic Federation. He taught 'Ferenczi and contemporary psychoanalysis' on the MSc psychoanalytic studies at UCL for many years and currently psychoanalysis in CapeTown, Chicago and Eastern European analytic societies. Author of Landscapes of the Dark - history,trauma, psychoanalysis. (Karnac 2011).

Philip Stokoe
Psychoanalyst Fellow BPAS
Organisational Consultant.
Ex Consultant Social Worker. Tavistock & Portman NHS and ex-Clinical Director of the Adult Department. Author of many papers on the application of psychoanalysis.

Margot Waddell is a psychoanalyst in private practice and a consultant child and adolescent psychotherapist at the Tavistock Clinic. She has a doctorate in English Literature from Cambridge and has published many articles. Her most recent book, Inside Lives: psychoanalysis and the growth of the personality was published in 2002 by Karnac.


Sally Weintrobe
Psychoanalyst Fellow BPAS.
Edited and contributed to "Engaging with Climate Change: psychoanalytic and interdisciplinary perspectives" (Routledge 2012), shortlisted for the international Gradiva award for contributions to psychoanalysis. She has written and talked widely on climate change, particularly on how to understand current levels of denial. Her current work is on how do we express our care about climate change in a culture of uncare?

Prof. David Tuckett
trained in Economics, Medical Sociology and Psychoanalysis and is Professor and Director of the Centre for Decision-Making and Uncertainty at UCL in the Faculty of Brain Sciences, as well as a Fellow of the Institute of Psychoanalysis in London. He works part-time in clinical practice but since winning a 2006 Leverhulme Research fellowship for a "psychoanalytic study of investment markets" has been collaborating with a range of colleagues to introduce psychoanalytical understanding to behaviour in the financial markets and the economy more generally. His book Minding the Markets: An Emotional Finance View of Financial Instability was published in New York and London by Palgrave Macmillan in June 2011 and a further monograph written with Professor Richard Taffler (University of Warwick School of Management) entitled “Fund Management: An Emotional Finance Perspective” was published by the Research Foundation of CFA Institute. Prior to this he received the 2007 Sigourney Award for distinguished contributions to the field of psychoanalysis. He has published books and articles in sociology, psychoanalysis, economics, and finance and is a former President of the European Psychoanalytic Federation, Editor in Chief of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis and Principal of the Health Education Studies Unit at the University of Cambridge.


£150 BPC members
£230 non members.

Some bursaries available.
Contact for more information – David Morgan [email protected]
07786900656

To reserve a place on this seminar please contact Marjory Goodall on 0207 563 5016 to make a telephone booking or email [email protected] Please complete/return the online booking form and return to Marjory Goodall with the required monies.

Cheques can be made payable to The Institute of Psychoanalysis and sent to : Marjory Goodall, Institute of Psychoanalysis, Byron House, 112a Shirland Road, Maida Vale, London W9 2BT.

Click here to book online.


The Institute of Psychoanalysis
Byron House
112A Shirland Road
London
W9 2BT
Tel: 02075635000

The British Psychoanalytical Society (incorporating the Institute of Psychoanalysis)
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