Psychoanalysis & the Psychosocial Discussion Group
Organised by:
Dr Noreen Giffney, BPC Founding Scholar
Description
Call for Expressions of Interest
The Psychoanalysis and the Psychosocial Discussion Group is an established group meeting online since 2022. Some places have become available in the group, so we are inviting expressions of interest from people interested in joining the group who can commit to attending all six sessions. If you are interested in joining the group, please have a look at the schedule of meetings and email Noreen Giffney (n.giffney@ulster.ac.uk) the information below by Friday 1 November 2024:
1. A paragraph about your clinical focus/research interests/creative practice (c. 100 words)
2. A paragraph about why you would like to join this group (c. 100 words)
3. A commitment that you are available to attend all six sessions
Best wishes
Noreen Giffney
Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist
BPC Founding Scholar
Description
This interdisciplinary series of six discussions will bring together psychoanalysis and psychosocial studies to help us to reflect on our experiences with the arts and culture. As a clinical practice, the focus of psychoanalysis is on the unconscious: aspects of experience that lie outside awareness or that are held by the person, often unbeknownst to them, in their bodies, in behavioural repetitions or in relational dynamics – all of which might present as symptoms. Psychoanalysis is also a theoretical approach for thinking about culture and society. This series brings psychoanalysis into dialogue with psychosocial studies to foreground the inter-relation between the unconscious and the social and cultural contexts in which we live and make our lives. The particular emphasis in the series will be on giving time to discuss what happens to us emotionally and unconsciously when we encounter a cultural object. For example, what happens within us as individuals and between us as groups of people when we watch a film, read a novel, listen to a piece of music, or encounter an art object? How might cultural experiences be understood as part of the environment-individual set up for our psychological development and wellbeing? How might psychoanalytic theories of play enable us to think about our involvement in acts of creativity? How do arts and cultural spaces facilitate (or not) us getting in touch with experiences we are having in the here and now? What might our experiences of, attachments to, and engagements with cultural objects tell us about ourselves? An electronic copy of the reading material will be made available in advance of each discussion.
Meeting Schedule
Session 1: Art and Attunement
Friday 22 November 2024 at 10.00 am-12 pmvia Zoom
We will begin by briefly introducing ourselves and why we have joined the group before discussing Rita Felski’s ‘Art and Attunement’ inHooked: Art and Attachment (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 2020), pp. 55-92.
Session 2: Aesthetic Experience and the Uncanny
Friday 6 December 6 2024 at 10.00 am-11.30 am via Zoom
We will discuss Gregorio Kohon’s ‘Considering “The Uncanny”’ in Reflections on the Aesthetic Experience: Psychoanalysis and the Uncanny(London and New York: Routledge 2016), pp. 1-24.
Session 3: Culture as Bad Object
Friday 17 January 2025 at 10.00 am-11.30 amvia Zoom
We will discuss Nini Fang’s ‘Culture as Bad Object’ in Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society29.1 (2024): 1-14.
Session 4: The Feeding Tube of Social Media
Friday 7 February 2025 at 10.00 am-11.30 amvia Zoom
We will discuss Steffen Krüger’s ‘The Feeding Tube – YouTube, Oral Cravings, and the Question of Addiction’ in Formative Media: Psychoanalysis and Digital Media Platforms(London and New York: Routledge 2025), pp. 56-85.
Session 5: The Art of the Therapeutic Relationship
Friday 7 March 2025 at 10.00 am-11.30 am via Zoom
We will discuss Maren Scheurer’s ‘The Art of the Therapeutic Relationship: Psychoanalytic Aesthetics’ in Transferences: The Aesthetics and Poetics of the Therapeutic Relationship(New York: Bloomsbury 2019), pp. 53-94.
Session 6: Becoming a Storyteller of One’s Own Life
Friday 4 April 2025 at 10.00 am-11.30 am via Zoom
We will discuss Lauren Levine’s ‘Becoming a Storyteller of One’s Own Life’ in Risking Intimacy and Creative Transformation in Psychoanalysis(London and New York: Routledge 2023), pp. 133-151.
Convener
Dr Noreen Giffney MIFPP, MICP, BPC Founding Scholar is a Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist and a psychosocial theorist. She is the author of the book, The Culture-Breast in Psychoanalysis: Cultural Experiences and the Clinic (Routledge 2021), and the author and/or editor of a number of articles and books on psychoanalysis; psychosocial studies; arts, culture and mental health; and gender and sexuality studies. She is the Director of ‘Psychoanalysis +’, an international, interdisciplinary initiative that brings together clinical, theoretical and artistic approaches to, and applications of, psychoanalysis. She teaches and researches in the areas of psychoanalysis and psychosocial studies at Ulster University, Belfast. Noreen will become the co-editor (with Emmanuelle Smith) of the BPC’s ‘New Associations’ magazine in January 2025.
Psychoanalysis +
‘Psychoanalysis +’ is an international, interdisciplinary initiative founded, developed and directed by Noreen Giffney since 2013. It foregrounds psychoanalysis as a clinical practice and a theoretical tool for tracing the unconscious dynamics underpinning cultural and societal contexts. It takes psychoanalysis itself as an object to be wondered about and questioned. ‘Psychoanalysis +’ brings together individuals interested in clinical, theoretical and artistic approaches to, and applications of, psychoanalysis. In this, it seeks to find a space for experience and discussion between the clinic, the academic institution, and the arts and cultural sphere. Psychoanalysis exists in an interdependent and mutually enriching relationship with the cultures and societies within which we as clinical and theoretical practitioners find ourselves. The ‘+’ in the title gestures towards the fact that psychoanalysis is always more than itself. In other words, psychoanalytic practitioners have always drawn on and incorporated insights from other clinical and non-clinical fields into our work, for example, literature, psychiatry, music, neuroscience, art, psychology, mathematics, medicine, philosophy, nursing, classics, social work, film, theatre and so on. Psychoanalysis is thus always, can only be, interdisciplinary. The space between ‘psychoanalysis’ and ‘+’ also recognises the gap needed for productive things to happen which cannot be known in advance. The ‘+’ also symbolises an openness to new possibilities and collaborations. My aim is to create a space where clinicians, artists, curators, researchers, and anyone interested in psychoanalysis can come together to have an experience together and to talk and reflect on that experience.
To book, email n.giffney@ulster.ac.uk
