The Association for Psychosocial Studies

Psychosocial Methodologies: Politics and Change
2017-11-01 17:00 - 19:00 (Europe/London)
A short doctoral course offered by UCL Institute of Education in association with the Association for Psychosocial Studies and the University of Birmingham

Dates: 5 – 7pm, Wednesdays 1st, 8th, 15th, 22nd, 29th November 2017
Venue: UCL Institute of Education, Room 537
20 Bedford Way
London
WC1H OAL
Tutors: Claudia Lapping, Ian McGimpsey, Maria Jose Lagos, Felipe Acuna

Registration:
UCL students – as usual.
Non-UCL students: Please contact Bob Grist: r.grist@ucl.ac.uk to register and access course Moodle site.
Max: 25 students
Any queries about the course, please contact Claudia Lapping: c.lapping@ucl.ac.uk

Psychosocial Methodologies: Politics and Change

This series of five sessions will focus on politics and processes of change. Drawing on selected texts from key theorists in the fields of psychoanalysis, social and cultural theory (including: Butler, Deleuze, Freud, Foucault, Gerson, Lacan, Wiegman, Zizek) we will engage with a series of concepts each of which functions as a lens for the analysis of politics or processes of change. Each text provides a slightly different framework for identifying both what counts as change, and for the construction of interventions that might help to provoke or direct subjective and/or political change. Methodologically, these frameworks orient us for the empirical examination of discourse, language, affect or desire, time, regulatory technologies, and relations to individual and institutional o/Others. Sessions will explore:

Session 1: Change
Session 2: Ideology, discourse and the role of the signifier
Session 3: The event and limit experience
Session 4: Repetition and memory
Session 5: Time, politics and the Other

In the sessions we will discuss the frameworks set out in the selected texts and, importantly, explore how these might be applied in the analysis of a concrete instance or piece of data related to a specific political moment. It is through engaging in this process of analysis that psychosocial methodologies will be explored. As such, participants should be prepared to engage in discussions of recent concrete events that involve loss and the precarity of human life, distributive injustices, and symbolic violence. Participants will be asked to prepare through detailed readings of the core texts in advance of the session.

Reasons to be cheerful or manic hope? Thoughts on the general election
2017-07-04 18:00 - 20:00
Tuesday 4 July, 6-8pm – The Tavistock Centre, Belsize Lane, NW3

A roundtable discussion organised by the Tavistock Clinic Policy Seminar, the Association for Psychosocial Studies, and the BSA’s Sociology Psychoanalysis and Psychosocial Study Group.
The result of the recent general election took many of us by surprise. Labour’s unexpected surge in the polls and the loss of 13 Conservative seats indicate that large sections of the electorate are weary of austerity, reject the populist ‘Little England’ and anti-immigration sentiments that helped fuel the Brexit vote, and are either sceptical about a ‘hard’ Brexit or oppose leaving the EU altogether. After nearly 40 years in which neoliberalism has dominated British politics, is there now an opening for a social democratic or socialist vision of Britain’s future? If so, what might that vision
look like and how would we get there? And what can a psychosocial perspective contribute to our understanding those questions? This roundtable discussion will explore the potential lessons of the general election and consider possibilities for the renewal of social democracy in the 21st century.
Speakers Georgina Blakeley, Jon Cruddas MP and Michael Rustin

Georgina Blakeley is Senior Lecturer in Politics at the Open University. She has published widely on citizen participation and urban governance. Her co-authored book The Regeneration of East Manchester: A Political Analysis was published in 2013.
Jon Cruddas is MP for Dagenham and Rainham, and was Policy Coordinator for the Labour Party between 2012 and 2015.

Michael Rustin is a Visiting Professor at the Tavistock Clinic, and a founding editor of Soundings. A paper by him on the election is online at:
https://www.lwbooks.co.uk/blog/ge2017-corbyn-labour-what-next

Attendance is free but bookings can be made here:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/reasons-to-be-cheerful-or-manic-hope-thoughts-on-the-general-election-tickets-35728334410

Narcissism and Destructive Leadership
2017-06-16 09:30 - 17:00 | The Foundry, 17 Oval Way, London SE11 5RR, London, London, SE11 5RR, United Kingdom
The idea that there are ‘narcissistic’ individuals who can wreak havoc when in positions of leadership and power has been receiving considerable public attention. Stories from political arenas, corporate boardrooms and public organisations tell of the damage done by particularly destructive individuals who gain positions of power.
Superficially at least, the fit between the clinical formulations of Narcissistic Personality Disorder and the behaviour of a number of prominent individuals seems strong. The seemingly overwhelming confidence in their own ability, the very grand sense of their own importance, alongside the disparagement, and aggression aimed at those who threaten their persona appears to fit well with the clinical accounts that emerged from psychoanalytic accounts of ‘narcissistic personality disorder’ some decades ago.
Of course, serious questions have been raised about the utility of such psychological concepts to understand what might be better understood as more complex sociopolitical phenomena. Should we also be thinking more about the attraction of such personalities, and the organisations and cultures that promote them? Perhaps we need further analysis of the sociocultural conditions that create or encourage such states of mind? It is now over 35 years since Christopher Lasch published his stinging indictment of ‘post industrial’ American society – Culture of Narcissism. How much relevance does that analysis of social conditions have today?
This seminar will examine the status and utility of conceptualisations of narcissistic personality disorder and narcissistic cultures.

PSYCHOSOCIAL CONNECTIONS: PRACTICE, POLICY AND RESEARCH
2014-12-16 - 2014-12-17
1st Annual Conference of the Association for Psychosocial Studies
16-17 December 2014
hosted by the Psychosocial Research Unit, University of Central Lancashire
Preston PR12HE
MORE INFORMATION and CALL FOR PAPERS TO FOLLOW
Abstract Submission deadline will be 1-07-2014

THE PSYCHOSOCIAL IMAGINATION
2014-06-13 10:30 - 18:30
A symposium to celebrate the launch of
The Association for Psychosocial Studies
Friday 13 June 2014
10.30am – 6.30pm
at The British Library Conference Centre
St Pancras, London
with talks, responses and contributions
from a wide range of psychosocial thinkers, practitioners and researchers including:
John Adlam (NHS), Caroline Bainbridge (Roehampton), Karl Figlio (Essex), Stephen Frosh (Birkbeck), Paul Hoggett (UWE), Wendy Hollway (OU), Gail Lewis (Birkbeck), Sasha Roseneil (Birkbeck), Mike Rustin (UEL), Paul Stenner (OU), Valerie Walkerdine (Cardiff)
Chaired by:
Lynn Froggett (UCLAN), Liz Frost (UWE) & Tom Wengraf
Organised in collaboration with the
Social Sciences Department of the British Library
Limited places – registration essential.
Cost, including morning and afternoon tea & coffee, lunch and a celebratory wine reception with canapés:
Members: £40
Unwaged members: £25
Non-members: £70
Unwaged non-members: £35
To register, click here
