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Interdisciplinary Seminar with Joan Raphael-Leff
Abstract:
Pregnancy takes self-other hospitality to its absolute extreme: two people reside in one body, sharing a two-way system. Responses vary as pregnant women, their partners and relatives invest the virtually unknown baby with their own fantasies, fears and expectations, before and after the birth.
Drawing on multidisciplinary sources ─ of psychoanalysis, neonatal research, social psychology, feminist theory and cultural studies ─ we explore unconscious effects of inter-corporeality on all of us who are of woman born.
While noting 'contagious arousal' and the transformative potential of parenting, in this interactive seminar I hope to also discuss psychosocial effects on sex-stereotyped cultural imagery of new reproductive technology (including female-based contraception, safe abortion, and fertility treatments) on our 'generative identity', reflected in today's childlessness-by-choice, and new patterns of family formation.
Speaker Biography:
Joan Raphael-Leff is a Psychoanalyst & Transcultural psychologist. Currently, Leader of the UCL/Anna Freud Centre Academic Faculty for Psycho-analytic Research. Previously, Head of the University College London MSc in Psychoanalytic Developmental Psychology (based at the Anna Freud Centre), and Professor of Psychoanalysis at the University of Essex, UK.