This year's Psychoanalysis Unit December conference will focus on the work of Ron Britton. As a UCL graduate in medicine and a Training and Supervising Psychoanalyst in the British Psychoanalytical Society who has spoken and conducted clinical seminars throughout the world, Ron Britton has made a series of major and original contributions in several areas by developing thinking on several topics including:

• Triangular space and the 'Third Position'
  
• The psychic structure of belief including his understanding of fundamentalism and idolatry
  
• The understanding of Hysteria and the primal scene
  
• PS(n) >D(n)>PS(n+1).....D(n+1) - that is to say to states of mind marked by an ongoing dialectical process of  'un-integration'  to 'integration'  to 'de-integration'  to  'aspiration'  and back again
  
• Narcissistic structures - particularly hyper-subjectivity and hyper-objectivity (or in other words  thin-skinned & thick-skinned narcissistic disorders)
  
• The need for agreement and its potential for malignant misunderstanding. His interesting idea, which he considers his most important clinical observation, is that at least in some states the subjectively felt need for agreement is inversely proportional to the expectation of understanding

Speakers will include:  Liana Chaves, Peter Fonagy and David Taylor. In addition Ron Britton and David Tuckett will hold a dialogue on some of Britton's key ideas in discussion with the audience.

SEMINARS:
Small group clinical seminars will be offered (led by leading UK analysts) on Friday 9th December from 6.00-7.30pm. An additional clinical meeting will be held earlier on the Friday afternoon (2.00-5.00pm)  when David
Tuckett will hold an additional extended clinical seminar designed to look at the core components of psychoanalytic technique and ways of reflecting on and conceptualising one's own technique.