Dresden – The Ghosts of the Past
Book ticketsOrganised by:
Psychoanalysis and Politics
Description
Dresden – The Ghosts of the Past are returning to haunt Europe
By JONATHAN SKLAR – Feb. 19th at 6 pm London time/ 7 pm Berlin time/ 8 pm Cape Town and Jerusalem time/ 1 pm New York Time/ 12 noon Chicago time/ 10 am Vancouver time
Part of the Psychoanalysis and Politics series Crises and Transmission
Dresden used to be known as the Florence of the Elbe till it was destroyed by an aerial firestorm towards the end of WW2 with massive loss of life. The attack was also against our cultural objects that leaves us similarly in Covid times with only a pixelated impression – a not alive culture that is hugely depressing. Winnicott theorised that the end of the Transitional object between the baby and mother left a space that could transform into the Arena of Creativity for humans, a development of unconscious mind. Without it we are bereft.
A discussion of the sacred and profane, St. Christopher and the Erl King examines the fight between good enough holding or suffocation of the object and introduces destructive sado-masochism. Metaphor is part of unconscious creativity in humans and is a deep component to analytic listening.
Sebald’s book Austerlitz is discussed in relation to the profound emptiness at the centre of destruction. Trans-generational trauma and the return of the repressed often cannot be known, described and understood as its unconscious centre is an empty space. Today Nazism arises again even in this city and beyond.
Jonathan Sklar is a Training Analyst in the British Psychoanalytical Society, an honorary member of the South African and Serbian psychoanalytic societies and Founder of the Independent Psychoanalysis Trust. He is the author of Landscapes of the Dark: History, Trauma, Psychoanalysis (Karnac 2011), Balint Matters: Psychosomatics and the Art of Assessment (Karnac 2017), Dark Times: Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Politics, History and Mourning (Phoenix 2019), and The Soft Power of Culture: Art, Transitional Space, Death and Play (Karnac 2024).
