The Association for Psychosocial Studies

Digital Mediation and Working Through in Times of Denial, Disavowal and Splitting: On the Un/Representable
2022-09-14 09:30 - 2022-09-15 15:00 (Europe/London) | St Mary’s University Twickenham London, Waldegrave Road, Twickenham, London, TW1 4SX, United Kingdom
An International Workshop
Organised by Dr Orit Dudai and Assoc. Prof. Jacob Johanssen – Supported by the Association for Psychosocial Studies
The goal of this workshop is for presenters to share work-in-progress and engage in collegial discussion with each other and attendees. Places are, therefore, limited.
We live in a time that is characterised by increasing political polarisation, fake news, conspiracy theories and other forms of extremism. Recent political developments, such as the post-Trump moment, have been credited with an increase in political paranoia and conspiracy theories that have spread far and wide on the internet. Social media such as Facebook, Twitter or Instagram exhibit high levels of misogyny, sexism and racism and are described as lacking in empathy, compassion and love. Traditional media, such as tabloid and broadsheet journalism or television news, also find themselves part of “culture wars” and torn between different political positions.
This symposium will explore what role psychoanalysis in combination with other disciplines, such as media and communication studies, philosophy and sociology, can play in analysing such phenomena, as well as finding possible solutions for them.
Do we need a new form of empathy or spirituality? To what extent are moments of denial, disavowal and polarization necessary? Can they revitalize political culture and society more generally? What are their limits? What solutions can be found? How are they intrinsically connected to questions of digital mediation and representation? How are they represented in film and popular culture? What tensions are revealed between what can be represented and what remains unrepresentable?

Speakers
Dr Jack Black (Sheffield Hallam University)
Dr Alfie Bown (Royal Holloway University)
Dr Orit Dudai (Kibbutzim College of Education, Technology and the Arts)
Assoc. Professor Jon Hackett (St. Mary’s University)
Assoc. Professor Jacob Johanssen (St. Mary’s University)
Dr Anthony Faramelli (Goldsmiths)
Dr Thi Gammon (Independent Scholar)
Dr Steffen Krüger (University of Oslo)
Dr Em. Sandra Meiri (Open University, Israel)
Dr Mark Murphy (Independent Scholar)
Professor Raya Morag (The Hebrew University)
Professor Candida Yates (Bournemouth University)

Spaces of Refuge: The Clinical Practice of Félix Guattari and Institutional Psychotherapy with Rachel Wilson and Anthony Faramelli
2022-11-25 16:00 - 18:00
Association for Psychosocial Studies Online Reading Group
Spaces of Refuge: The Clinical Practice of Félix Guattari and Institutional Psychotherapy
with Rachel Wilson and Anthony Faramelli
REGISTER HERE
Friday 25 November 2022, 4 – 6pm
Rachel Wilson and Anthony Faramelli will discuss the legacies of Félix Guattari’s clinical practice, Institutional Psychotherapy, and how this should inform our current approaches to issues of asylum and refuge for this months’ APS online reading group.
The article is available to download here
Abstract:
Félix Guattari’s work is most commonly discussed (and overshadowed by) his collaborations with Gilles Deleuze. This minimisation allows for a misrepresentation of Guattari’s work that minimises the fact that his theoretical writings were always couched in a grounded clinical practice. A practice which constitutes a politics of the sector.
Guattari’s prescient final text, Chaosmosis, argues that the conditions of Capital responsible for the current social-psychic-ecological crisis of migration demand modes of analysis capable of grasping their complexity, ones grounded in the ethico-aesthetic. It is a text that draws directly from the therapeutic practice that he, Tosquelles, Oury, and others in the Institutional Psychotherapy (IP) movement developed in their clinics. This work entailed the inclusion of aesthetic practices that work to deterritorialise the institution, shifting from carceral sites and creating therapeutic spaces of care and refuge.
This article explores the centrality of an ethico-aesthetic approach to the understanding of therapeutic space within the sites and clinical practice of Institutional Psychotherapy. Looking especially at daily life and the inclusion of aesthetic practice, it examines the particular notion of asylum that emerged in these sites that so informed the clinical and critical work of Guattari and Deleuze, and draws connections to the current global crisis of migration in the necessity of such sites to the forced segregation between those deemed mad and sane.
All registered attendees should automatically be sent a Zoom link. The link will be re-sent the day of the event.
Author biographies:
Rachel Wilson is a Recovery Coordinator in an accommodation service for people with high support mental health needs operated by the charity SHP. As a researcher, Rachel’s work is situated at the intersection of radical forms of psychotherapy, aesthetics, filmmaking and the histories of institutional analysis. She is currently conducting her doctoral studies in the Department of Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths, University of London. Rachael is also a researcher at the Centre for Institutional Analysis and a member of the Network for Institutional Analysis.
Anthony Faramelli is an organisational consultant and a lecturer in Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London where he co-directs, with Janna Graham, the Centre for Institutional Analysis. Anthony’s research is situated at the intersection of psychosocial theory, recent French philosophy and postcolonial theory, with a focus on Institutional Psychotherapy and the work of Félix Guattari and Frantz Fanon. Anthony is also a member of the Executive Board of the Association for Psychosocial Studies and a member of the Network for Institutional Analysis.
Other events are currently in the planning stage, follow us on Twitter, Facebook or sign up as a Member to keep up to date with everything. Members will continue to receive copies of the Journal of Psychosocial Studies as a further benefit of subscription to the Association.

Jacob Johanssen: Platform Aesthetics and Enlarged Sexuality: Perspectives from Jean Laplanche
2023-01-19 17:00 - 19:00
Psychosocial Interventions: Aesthetic Analysis in Practice and Theory
An Event Series by APS and the Department of Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths

Psychosocial Studies is a transdisciplinary form of academic scholarship that engages the ways in which subjective experience is interwoven with social life. Psychosocial Studies is characterised by its orientation towards progressive social and personal change. An important, but often overlooked, aspect of Psychosocial theory and practice are aesthet-ic interventions. More than a mere science of perception, aesthetics plays an important, but often overlooked, role in the theory and practice of institutional forms of psychotherapy, and guide psychosocially informed politics. The Visual Cultures Spring 2023 Public Programme looks to elucidate a psychosocial understanding of the interconnected role aesthetics play in politics and psychotherapeutic practice.
This series is organised in partnership with the Association for Psychosocial Studies.

Schedule:
• Thursday 19/01: Jacob Johanssen
• Thursday 26/01: Susan Kelly
• Thursday 02/02: Hannah Dee
• Thursday 09/02: George Dake
• Thursday 16/02: Rachel Wilson
• Thursday 02/03: Janna Graham and Wanderley Santos
• Thursday 09/03: Lita Crociani-Windland and Jonathan Mosley
• Thursday 16/03: Felix Birch and Sebastian Birch
• Thursday 23/03: Guilaine Kinouani
• Friday 24/03: Workshop with Lynn Frogget
• Thursday 30/03: Nini Fang

Lectures will be held in the Professor Stuart Hall Building (Goldsmiths), LG01. No booking required.

Susan Kelly: Turning: a Micropolitical Cartography of Colonial Rehabilitation
2023-01-26 17:00 - 19:00

Hannah Dee: It’s A Good Home Ain’t It? Memories of Broadmoor
2023-02-02 17:00 - 19:00

Felix Birch and Bass Birch: Mapping Waste
2023-02-03 17:00 - 19:00

George Dake: Map-making as a Psycho-social method: The Everyday lives and lived experiences of men who sell sex to other men
2023-02-09 17:00 - 19:00

Rachel Wilson: Every Little Thing: Institutional Psychotherapy at Work
2023-02-16 17:00 - 19:00

Janna Graham and Wanderley Santos: TBC
2023-03-02 17:00 - 19:00

Lita Crociani-Windland and Jonathan Mosley: Buildings as psychosocial assemblages: a psychosocial mapping of political architecture- La Siege du PCF/Espace Niemeyer (prepared in collaboration with Sophie and Nigel Williams)
2023-03-09 17:00 - 19:00

Guilaine Kinouani: Difference, Whiteness and the Group Analytic Matrix
2023-03-23 17:00 - 19:00

Nini Fang: Culture as the Bad Object
2023-03-30 17:00 - 19:00

Digital Culture and the Object of Race
2023-06-09 18:30 - 21:00 | Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art, St James's, London, SE14 6AD, United Kingdom
Register here

Violence of Politics and Politics of Violence
2024-02-01 15:00 - 17:00 | 1.264 Usha Kasera Lecture Theatre, Old College South Bridge Edinburgh EH8 9YL, 1.264 Usha Kasera Lecture Theatre, Old College South Bridge Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Edinburgh, EH8 9YL, United Kingdom

2024-03-13 14:00 - 2024-07-12 16:00
DECOLONISING COUNSELLING & PSYCHOTHERAPY – REFLECTIONS FROM PSYCHOSOCIAL PERSPECTIVES

This public-facing seminar series challenges Eurocentric perspectives in traditional therapy and develop politically progressive, decolonial alternatives in line with University- and sector-wide decolonisation efforts. It examines the psychosocial impacts of colonial violence on contemporary socio-political dynamics. It is funded by the Principal’s Teaching Awards Scheme and is led by Nini Kerr in collaboration with Rhea Gandhi and Mariya Levitanus.

You can register for any/all of our events here – they are free and open to everyone!

Programme Schedule:

13th March, Wednesday, 2-4pm: Nini Kerr on ‘Culture as the Bad Object’ and Erica Burman on ‘Child as Method as a resource for decolonial theory and practice‘ – G.07 Meadows Lecturer Theater, Doorway 4

[Special Book Launch Event] 18th March, Monday, 4.30-6.30pm: ‘The Rebel’s Clinic’ by Adam Shatz. Register here.

12th April, Friday, 2-4pm: Mariya Levitanus on ‘Beyond the Norm: Decolonial Queer Perspectives on Counselling and Psychotherapy’ – Sydney Smith Lecture Room – Doorway 1

10th May, Friday, 2-4pm: Rhea Gandhi & Isaac Yu on ‘Therapy as Political Resistance’ – Sydney Smith Lecture Room – Doorway 1

5th June, Wednesday, 2-4pm – Lynne Layton ‘Social Psychoanalysis, Normative Unconscious Processes, and an Ethic of Repair [room tbc]

12th July, Friday, 2-4pm – Sheyda Esmali on ‘Unravelling Xenophobia Psychoanalytically’ [room tbc]

We look forward to seeing you there!

Project Team:
Nini, Rhea, and Mariya

Lynne Layton on 'Social Psychoanalysis, Normative Unconscious Processes, and an Ethic of Repair.
2024-06-05 14:00 - 15:00
We are delighted to invite you to join us for a public lecture by Lynne Layton on ‘Social Psychoanalysis, Normative Unconscious Processes, and an Ethic of Repair. The lecture is part of the seminar series on ‘Decolonising Counselling and Psychotherapy: Reflections from Psychosocial Perspectives’, organised by Nini Kerr, Rhea Gandhi, and Mariya Levitanus, in collaboration with the Association for Psychosocial Studies.

When: Wednesday, 5th June, from 2-3pm.
How: MS Teams – please contact Rhea Gandhi for the link to join the event

Session abstract
This talk takes up the question of what a social psychoanalysis might look like in the clinic, in our psychoanalytic institutions, and in our society. Drawing on some earlier psychoanalysts’ concepts that have connected the social world and the psychic world, I introduce the concept of normative unconscious processes, which addresses the ways that racism, heterosexism, classism and other social inequalities are unconsciously replicated in the clinic. The talk then explores how therapists can resist unconsciously replicating such cultural inequalities. We will then look outside the clinic at how cultural inequalities manifest in the wider circles of contemporary institutional and sociocultural life. Here, too, we will explore how we, as citizens and therapists, both unconsciously replicate and can resist replicating harmful, unequal relations. We will think together about how to address the places in our different subjective and communal worlds where harm has been done, and engage together on how to make repair.

Author bio:
Lynne Layton has a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and in Clinical Psychology. She is a psychoanalyst and has taught and supervised at the Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis. She is also a Corresponding Member of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Psychiatry Department at Harvard Medical School. Lynne is the author of Who’s That Girl? Who’s That Boy? Clinical Practice Meets Postmodern Gender Theory, and co-editor of 3 books: Narcissism and the Text: Studies in Literature and the Psychology of Self; Bringing the Plague: Toward a Postmodern Psychoanalysis; and Psychoanalysis, Class and Politics: Encounters in the Clinical Setting. From 2004-2017, she was co-editor of the journal Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society and she is currently an associate editor of Psychoanalytic Dialogues. She is a past-President of Psychoanalysis for Social Responsibility and founded Reflective Spaces/Material Places-Boston, a group of psychodynamic therapists committed to community mental health and social justice. Lynne is on the organizing committee of a national Black-led reparations campaign. She is the author of the 2020 book Toward a Social Psychoanalysis: Culture, Character, and Normative Unconscious Processes, winner of a 2021 book award from the American Academy and Board of Psychoanalysis.

Please contact Rhea Gandhi for the link to join the event.
