BETWEEN MIND AND CULTURE: ORDINARY DIFFERENCES, Nov.19th

A one-day conference from the British Psychoanalytic Council exploring the cultural and social implications on psychoanalytic psychotherapy and its future practices.

About the Conference

People from BME backgrounds often experience themselves as being on the receiving end of misconceptions and projections; reduced to theories that are more familiar to psychoanalysts and psychotherapists. This excludes the social contexts within which that experience takes place. On the other hand, focusing exclusively on social context runs the risk of reducing the phenomena to familiar ‘isms’ that exclude a psychological dimension.

This conference aims to understand how, as practitioners, we can expand our work in order to better provide therapeutic relief to a wider cohort of individuals as well as begin to address how the profession engage in a more meaningful way with issues around cultural diversity.

Programme

09.30 – 10.00 Registration

10.00 – 10.15 Opening Remarks – Maxine Dennis 10.15 – 11.30 Between Mind and Culture – Salman Akhtar / Discussant – Helen Morgan

11.30 – 12.00 Morning Break

12.00 – 13.15 Breakout Sessions:

1. Identity and Culture – Fakhry Davids

2. Security and Freedom – Julian Lousada & Helen Morgan

3. Changing the Game – Paul Kassman & Carine Minne

13.15 – 14.15 Lunch Break14.15 – 15.15 Thinking Space – Co-facilitated by Frank Lowe, Onel Brookes and Katie Argent 15.15 –

15.45 Afternoon Break

15.45 – 17.00 In the face of Unreason: Engaging with Racist states of Mind – Narendra Keval

17.00 – 17.15 Interval

17.15 – 18.00 Closing Discussion – Maxine Dennis

Details:

Key note speak - Salman Akhtar, MD, is Professor of Psychiatry at Jefferson Medical College and a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia. He has served on the editorial boards of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis, the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, and the Psychoanalytic Quarterly. His more than 300 publications include 80 books, of which 17 are solo-authored. Dr. Akhtar is the recipient of the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association's Best Paper of the Year Award (1995), the Margaret Mahler Literature Prize (1996), the American Society of Psychoanalytic Physicians’ Sigmund Freud Award (2000), the American College of Psychoanalysts’ Laughlin Award (2003), the American Psychoanalytic Association’s Edith Sabshin Award (2000), Columbia University’s Robert Liebert Award for Distinguished Contributions to Applied Psychoanalysis (2004), the American Psychiatric Association’s Kun Po Soo Award (2004) and Irma Bland Award for being the Outstanding Teacher of Psychiatric Residents in the country (2005). He received the highly prestigious Sigourney Award (2012) for distinguished contributions to psychoanalysis. Dr. Akhtar is an internationally-sought speaker and teacher, and his books have been translated in many languages, including German, Italian, Korean, Romanian, Serbian, Spanish, and Turkish.

Identity and Culture: Fakhry Davids – COMING SOON

Security and Freedom: Julian Lousada & Helen Morgan – COMING SOON

Helen Morgan is a Fellow of the British Psychotherapy Foundation and is a training analyst and supervisor for the Jungian Analytic Association within the BPF. She works mainly in private practice as an analyst and also supervises in both the individual and the group setting. She has written a number of papers including several on working with racism within the clinical setting. She is currently the chair of the British Psychoanalytic Council.

Changing the Game: Paul Kassman & Carine Minne – COMING SOON

Dr Carine Minne is a Consultant Psychiatrist in Forensic Psychotherapy at the Portman Clinic (Tavistock & Portman NHS Foundation Trust) and Broadmoor Hospital (WLMHT). She is also a psychoanalyst with the British Psychoanalytical Society.

Paul Kassman has worked with offenders and young people in London as a youth worker, criminal justice practitioner and policymaker for over 25 years. Over the last 10 years Paul has focused exclusively on approaches to addressing the impact of gangs and gang culture in London.

In the face of Unreason: Engaging with Racist states of Mind: Narendra Keval

The abundance of spatial metaphors or imagery in political discourse that portrays building walls, fortresses, borders or fences in tumultuous times is no accident. In the face of anxieties and fears about diversity and difference, the racist imagination seeks out idealised spaces in the mind and society that offer tempting retreats in which loyalty towards notions of community, tribal group, belief system or an abstraction takes precedence over the capacity for reason and empathy. The tragic depiction of ethnic others in dehumanising terms can be used to politically justify expunging them as ‘foreign bodies’ or parasites feeding, robbing or depleting an idealised body politic; phantasies that are part of a larger narrative of an imaginary love lost, sense of betrayal, grievance and a wish for revenge in racism. Some of these themes will be explored by looking at the quality of thinking and the predicaments and challenges of engaging with racist states of mind when they emerge in the consulting room and on the wider canvas of contemporary culture.

Narendra Keval is an adult and adolescent psychotherapist and consultant clinical psychologist. He is a member of the Tavistock Society of Psychotherapists and a visiting lecturer at the Tavistock Clinic. He worked as Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist in the NHS with patients suffering from complex personality disorders. He is currently in full time private practice. His book ‘Racist States of Mind: Understanding the Perversion of Curiosity and Concern was recently published by Karnac.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

View our Event Calendar:

https://www.bpc.org.uk/events-calendar/#event|between-mind-and-culture-ordinary-differences|1

Qualified Practitioners/Registrants : £80

Trainees/Students. : £55