Talks, Workshops and Psychoanalytic Interests
This page offers a précis of my continuing engagement with subjects that matter to me within psychoanalysis and society. Through talks, workshops and study groups, I have explored questions of loss, anxiety, depression, gender, culture, art and film, as well as the continuing relevance of Freud, Klein and other psychoanalytic thinkers.
My interest lies particularly in bringing psychoanalytic ideas into conversation with contemporary life and making complex theory accessible without losing its depth.
Selected Talks and Events
Peepo! When a Child’s Game Turns Malignant
FPC Psychoanalytic Forum, 11 February 2023
This talk developed from an encounter with the work of Magritte while I was recovering from a bereavement, and its subsequent resonance in my clinical work with a woman bereaved by suicide. Drawing on Freud’s Mourning and Melancholia, I explored melancholia, repetition and the complex relationship between the suicidal person and those who are left behind.
Anxiety Conference
Brighton Therapy Partnership, 8 October 2022
Contribution to a conference exploring anxiety from therapeutic and psychoanalytic perspectives.
Klein Study Group
BCAT, September 2022
A four-week study group devoted to reading Melanie Klein’s original papers. We explored internal object relations, anxiety and guilt, projective identification, play technique and the development of mental functioning.
Klein’s writing can initially feel vivid, difficult and sometimes extreme. The group aimed to approach her ideas through close reading and discussion, allowing their clinical relevance to emerge.
Working with Depressive Anxiety
BCAT, 14 May 2022
A workshop exploring depressive anxiety from a psychodynamic perspective, including the oscillation between guilt, destructive impulses and the possibility of working through difficult emotional states.
Freud Study Group
BCAT, September 2021
A four-week study group returning to Freud’s own writing through The Interpretation of Dreams, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, On Narcissism and Mourning and Melancholia.
The aim was to make Freud more accessible while retaining the complexity of his thinking and to consider why his ideas continue to matter to contemporary psychotherapeutic practice and culture.
Earlier Talks, Conferences and Workshops
- Anxiety and Fear, 2017
- Freud Study Group, WPF Therapy, London, 2017
- Love in Psychotherapy, London, 2017
- Jung and Shiva: Phallic and Feminine, London, 2017
- Empowering the Feminine: The Phallic Woman, London, 2016
- Jung and Shiva: Encounters with a Subterranean God?, WPF Therapy, London, 2016
- Connecting Conversations: In Conversation with poet Daljit Nagra, London, 2014
- Film and the Psycho-Cultural: Objects, Relatedness, Process, Freud Museum, London, 2014
- Shyam Benegal: Transformational Object, Psychoanalysis and the Moving Image Conference, Birkbeck University, London, 2014
- Therapeutic Alliance: A Psychodynamic Approach, Milton Keynes, 2013