GCP – On Misogyny in Psychoanalytic Discourse

Organised by:

Guildford Centre for Psychotherapy

Description

In psychoanalysis misogyny hides in plain sight. It is commonplace in psychoanalytic and psychodynamic literature and case studies for a description of the, usually female, analysand’s attractiveness to be given as a diagnosis rather than an opinion, for the word ‘feminine’ to be used as a synonym for submission, for psychosexual development to miss the glaringly obviously important stage of menstruation, for a child’s development to be modelled on the theory of male psychosexual development as described by Freud, for women to still be described in terms of their loss of not having a penis but gaining a baby – not a vagina, and for the fundamental experiences of pregnancy and birth to continue to be bypassed. Ironically, for a field whose main currency is reflection, the institutionally-misogynistic treatment of women is both pervasive and overlooked, with implications for all talking therapies and the clinical experience.

This event will take place on Zoom. A recording of the event will be available for 30 days after the event takes place.

CPD certificates (2hours CPD) and a link to the recording will be sent to ticketholders after the event

Michaela Chamberlain trained at the Bowlby Centre and the Psychoanalysis Unit at UCL. After qualifying in 2016, she began teaching Freud and Attachment Theory and also became Chair of the Bowlby Centre. Michaela has presented clinical papers at public forums, including The Bowlby Centre, BPS, The Guild of Psychotherapists and IARPP Australia, lectured internationally and been published in the British Journal of Psychotherapy, Attachment: New Directions in Psychotherapy and Relational Psychoanalysis, New Associations and The New Psychotherapist magazine. Her book, Misogyny in Psychoanalysis, was released in June 2022 and explores the historical and current context of misogyny in psychoanalytic theory and clinical practice. During 2023 she was invited to speak with Adam Phillips about her book at the Freud Museum London and was interviewed for the New Books in Psychoanalysis podcast.

Michaela works in private practice in London as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist, supervisor and training therapist.

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