Words and Deeds: Language, the Psyche & Object Relations

About

The 2023 UCL Psychoanalysis Conference is about the many uses of language as they are embedded in its reciprocal relationships with mental and interpersonal life.  Our enquiry will focus upon the uses of language in psychoanalytic work with children and adults in whom language approximates to what is deemed normative;  as well as with others in whom there are marked divergences in language and symbolic functioning.  Some contributions will examine the effectiveness of communications of psychoanalytic thinking in relation to global issues.  Others will consider innovations in literary and other forms of representation, including those of artificial intelligence.

All the papers and panels of the Conference will be held in-person in UCL’s Cruciform Lecture Theatre. We encourage you to come if you can. For those who are unable to attend in-person, all parts of the programme (save clinical seminars) will be streamed online via Zoom. Because of this hybrid format, all parts of the programme will be sequential; none of the sessions will be in-parallel. 

View Conference Programme

The Further Contributions Forum: Call for Abstracts

As last year, the Conference Pack will include synopses of some of the thought-provoking ideas you send us, which for reasons of space and thematic continuity cannot be included in the programme. Often these come from younger contributors and/or contributors from other disciplines  – although equally, they may be established and well-known to us all. We benefit greatly from both.

The Clinical Seminars

Afternoon Clinical Seminar with David Tuckett

Friday 1 December, 15.30 - 17.00 (GMT)
Location: Senate House, London (in-person only)

What do psychoanalysts do and how do they know they are doing it?

The Comparative Clinical Methods (CCM) working party was set up by the European Psychoanalytic Federation in 2003 to answer this question. 

In December 2023 David Tuckett, Elizabeth Allison, Olivier Bonard, Georg Bruns, Anna Christopoulos, Michael Diercks, Eike Hinze, Marinella Linardos and Michael Sebek (with assistance from Abbot Bronstein and Marie Rudden) will publish a book with the title which describes the outcome of 20 years research. Briefly, there is a new common theoretical framework for comparing the way psychoanalysts work covering the topics of (1) transference and countertransference, (2) the way they infer their patients’ unconscious beliefs, (3) what they think their patients are repeating and (4) how they think psychoanalysis makes a difference. The framework, in the context of the findings distilled from over 300 case presentations, leads to 11 questions that each psychoanalyst can ask him or herself if they want to reflect on what they have been doing and why in any session.

David Tuckett will introduce this new framework, describe some of the findings in the book and discuss how to use the new 11 questions. Participants will be sent the questions two weeks before the seminar so they can consider them while working, but there will be no obligation to make any presentation. 

Evening Clinical Seminars - Friday 1 December, 1800 - 19.45 (GMT)

Clinical Seminar Leaders include Catalina Bronstein*, Peter Fonagy, Gigliola Fornari Spoto, Shirley B Hiscock, Francesca Hume, Kate Pugh, and David Taylor.

Some will be in-person at Senate House or in the seminar leaders own consulting room. Other clinical seminars will be taking place online via Zoom. More online clinical seminars may be offered if there is demand.

Locations: various online and in-person (please see registration website for the location of each clinical seminar) 

*Please note that Catalina Bronstein’s clinical seminar will take place at the earlier time of 1600-1745 (GMT). This seminar will take place online via Zoom.