Words and Deeds: the part of language in mental and interpersonal functioning

The 2023 UCL Psychoanalysis Conference seeks to arrive at a psychoanalytic view of the place and the functions of language: they are embedded in other mental and interpersonal forms of action. Psychoanalytic treatments depend upon language: thus our enquiry will focus upon what can be observed in such treatments. These will include psychoanalytic work with children and adults in whom the use of language outwardly appears to approximate to what is often deemed normative; as well as with others in whom divergences or abnormalities in language and symbolic functioning are evident. Some papers will examine innovations in literary and other forms of representation that have been developed in the course of cultural evolution.