Australian Psychoanalytical Society Events

 
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Upcoming Events


APAS Open Days 2024

The Mind and Body in Turbulent Times
with guest speaker Professor Alessandra Lemma

8th - 9th November, 2024
Melbourne, Victoria
In-Room & Online

 

APAS Public Lecture

Professor Alessandra Lemma presents:
Customising the Body: From Omnipotence to Autonomy

Monday 4th November 8 - 9.30pm
In-Room & Online at View Hotel, 17 Blue St, North Sydney

Abstract

In this paper I focus on psychoanalytic work with patients who are preoccupied with, and deeply distressed by, the appearance of their bodies. They may see ‘ugly’ in the mirror, or they may see an alien reflection that is not experienced as ‘me’. This may lead them to undertake cosmetic and surgical procedures. Psychoanalysts are predisposed to view the culture of body modification with some considerable suspicion, squarely focusing on the risks associated with the enactment of an omnipotent phantasy. I share this concern in many cases, as I will illustrate through my work with a patient who pursued cosmetic surgery. However, in this paper I also consider that there are developmentally appropriate omnipotent phantasies and that there are some individuals for whom the modification of the body represents their best possible adaptation. In such cases I suggest that the decision to modify the body may be understood as a ‘cognisant adaptation’ because it is not based on an unconscious enactment.

 

Events


Seminar Series

Donald Meltzer Revisited

Donald Meltzer (1922 – 2004), working in the Kleinian tradition, was known for his theoretical innovations. His significant contributions include the concept of adhesive identification and its role in autistic states of mind, the aesthetic conflict based on the inner mother-infant relationship and the claustrum and intrusive identification. In this seminar series, we revisit the ideas of Meltzer through presentations and conversations with international psychoanalytic experts who were supervised by Meltzer.

Seminar 1

Psychoanalytic atmosphere: Struggles between intimacy and respect
Presenter: Clara Nemas

Thursday 22 August 8-9.30pm

Seminar 2

The aesthetic model in psychoanalytic practice
Presenter: Virginia Ungar

Thursday 5 September 8-9.30pm

Seminar 3

Theory and Clinic of the Claustrum by Donald Meltzer: Intrusive identification at work and the emerging from the Claustrum
Presenter: Angelika Staehle

Thursday 12 September 8-9.30pm

Seminar 4

Life Space and Intrusive Identification: Thoughts on Identification Processes in the Analysis of a Borderline Patient
Presenter: Karen Proner

Thursday 19 September 8-9.30pm

Seminar 5

In Conversation with Clara Nemas, Angelika Staehle and Karen Proner

Thursday 26 September 8-9.30pm

 

When
Thursday 22 August & 5, 12, 19, 26 September, 2024, 8 - 9.30pm Sydney time.

Where
Online via zoom

Registration
$330 for 5 Seminars or $88 per Seminar (incl GST). A recording will be available for a two-week period following each event.


Past Events


Seminar Series

The Body and the Psychoanalytical Process

We are honoured to have five internationally distinguished psychoanalysts reflecting on the intersections of mind and body and how the body and the senses enter psychoanalytic practice and thought.

Seminar 1

The Body of the Analyst and the Analytic Setting
Presenter: Alessandra Lemma

Thursday 15 February 8-9.30pm

Seminar 2

Skin Deep: an appealing paradox
Presenter: Virginia Ungar

Thursday 22 February 8.00-9.30pm

Seminar 3

Metaphoric Metonymic and Psychotic Somatoform Dissociation
Presenter: Dana Amir

Thursday 29 February 8.00-9.30pm

Seminar 4

The world we inhabit: the phantasy of the mother's body
Presenter: Clara Nemas

Thursday 7 March 8-9.30pm

Seminar 5

Musicality in the consulting room
Presenter: Francis Grier

Thursday 14 March 8-9.30pm

 

When
Thursday 15, 22, 29 February & 7, 14 March, 2024, 8 - 9.30pm

Where
Online via zoom

Registration
(inc. GST) $330 for 5 Seminars or $88 per Seminar A recording will be available for a two-week period following each event.


APAS 50th Anniversary Conference

Memory, Mourning & Re-imagining the Future

We are honoured to have three internationally distinguished psychoanalysts reflecting on the impact of trauma on psychic and social life and its transmission which complicates ideas of linear time.

In-room & Online | View Hotel, North Sydney

The APAS is pleased to invite you to our 50th Anniversary Conference. We wish to use this opportunity to remember, mourn and celebrate both our national and psychoanalytic culture. We want to explore how our socio-cultural threads influence the way we are and who we are becoming. To remember Freud, we are interested in understanding the shadows that have fallen upon our ideas and beliefs about psychoanalytic thought and practice. We welcome and invite you to join with us in this dialogue to re-imagine possible transformative developments in psychoanalysis.

 

Seminar Series

"Reflections on Memory, Trauma and Time"

We are honoured to have three internationally distinguished psychoanalysts reflecting on the impact of trauma on psychic and social life and its transmission which complicates ideas of linear time.

Seminar 1

"The analyst's identity challenged by the reality of today's adolescents"
Presenter: Florence Guignard

15 June 8-9.30pm

Seminar 2

"On Winnicott's concept of the 'Fear of Breakdown"
Presenter: Jan Abram

22 June 8.00-9.30pm

Seminar 3

"Internal and External: psychoanalysis as an experience of dialectic reality"
Presenter: Heribert Blass

29 June 8.00-9.30pm

 

When
Thursday 15, 22, 29 June, 2023 8-9.30pm

Biographies

read more

Florence Guignard, born in Geneva in 1934, is of Swiss and French nationality. She is a clinical psychologist and Child and Adolescent Training Member of the IPA. She is past Vice-President and Training Analyst of the Paris Psychoanalytic Society and Past Chair and present Counsellor of the IPA Committee on child and Adolescent Psychoanalysis. She founded the Association pour la Psychanalyse de l’Enfant in 1984, and the Société Européenne pour la Psychanalyse de l’Enfant et de l’Adolescent (SEPEA) in 1994. She chaired the team of l’Année Psychanalytique Internationale/IJP and has published more than 200 psychoanalytical papers in French, English, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Turkish and psychoanalytical reviews and book chapters in French, English, Italian and German. She has authored four books: Au Vif de l’Infantile (1996), Épître à l’objet (1997) both translated into Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Turkish; Quelle Psychanalyse pour le XXIe siècle? (2015), translated into English as Psychoanalytic concepts and Technique in Development. Psychoanalysis, Neuroscience and Physics, (Routledge 2020); Au vif de l’Infantile, aujourd’hui (2020) translated into English as The Infantile in Psychoanalytic Practice Today" (Routledge, 2022). She has two books forthcoming later in 2022 Le psychanalyste dans la cité and Conversations psychanalytiques. Une autobiographie with Sylvie Reignier.

Jan Abram is a training and supervising analyst of the British Psychoanalytical Society and in private practice in London. She is Visiting Professor of the Psychoanalysis Unit, University College London and currently Vice President of the European Psychoanalytic Federation for the Annual Conferences. She is President-Elect for the EPF to start her term in March 2024. She is a Visiting Lecturer and supervisor at the Tavistock Clinic, London. In 2016 she was a Visiting Professor for the University of Kyoto, Japan, where she resided for a writing sabbatical. Jan Abram has published several books and articles notably: The Language of Winnicott, first published in 1996 and judged Outstanding Academic Book of the Year in 1997 (2nd edition 2007 and translated into several languages; Classic Book PEP); Donald Winnicott Today (2013) for the New Library of Psychoanalysis (shortlisted for a Gradiva Award); and co-authored with R.D.Hinshelwood The Clinical Paradigms of Melanie Klein and Donald Winnicott: comparisons and dialogues (Routledge 2018). She has recently published The Surviving Object: psychoanalytic clinical essays on psychic survival-of-the-object with the New Library of Psychoanalysis, Routledge (2022). In the summer of 2023 her second book with R.D. Hinshelwood will be published: The Clinical Paradigms of Donald Winnicott and Wilfred Bion: comparisons and dialogues.

Heribert Blass is a Training and Supervising Psychoanalyst for Adults, Children and Adolescents, Specialist in Psychosomatic Medicine, Psychotherapy, Psychiatry. He is a Member of the German Psychoanalytical Association (DPV) and the IPA. Since 2020 he has been President of the European Psychoanalytic Federation (EPF), and since May 2023 IPA President elect. Dr. Blass has written several publications on male identity and sexuality, the image of the father in human mental life, the relation between internal and external reality, on supervision in psychoanalytic education, on psychoanalytic cultural theory and Covid19, and on individual and institutional boundary transgressions as a special form of thought disorder.


Neville Symington Commemorative Conference

"Spirited Conversations"

With keynote speaker, Michael Brearley

The Australian Psychoanalytical Society is pleased to invite you to our special event to commemorate the life and work of Neville Symington (1937- 2019). Symington has left an important and extensive body of work for which he was awarded the prestigious Sigourney Award in 2013. He understood deeply the need to think our own thoughts, the human desire for freedom of thought. We wish to honour his memory with our Conference, Spirited Conversations.

 

When
25-26 November, 2022

Where
In-room & Online via zoom


Annual Conference Days

"Navigating Boundaries: Too close / Too far" - With Professor Glen Gabbard, USA, Guest Speaker (online)

(Online via zoom)

The Australian Psychoanalytical Society is pleased to announce the Annual Conference Open Days will be on the theme of trauma, boundaries and the ethics of care.

Professor Gabbard is Training and Supervising Analyst at the Houston-Galveston Psychoanalytic Institute, Houston, Texas and Director of the Baylor Psychiatry Clinic, Baylor College of Medicine. He will present the keynote paper entitled Boundaries in Cyberspace.

 

When


10-11 September, 2022

Where
Online via zoom


Encountering The Infantile In The Analytic Relationship

In this series of seminars, three internationally distinguished psychoanalysts discuss their perspectives on the infantile that have evolved through their deep and creative engagement with psychoanalytic thought and practice. The term, ‘the infantile’ covers several ideas including the infantile in the transference / countertransference encounter and the child within the adult. Expressions of the infantile can be silent or noisy in the analytic session but they are ever present both for patient and analyst alike, shaping the intersubjective encounter. Conscious and unconscious infantile aspects of the patient and the analyst can influence the analytic attitude, interpretive approaches and the capacity for play and imagination in both helpful and unhelpful directions.

Important Information

Due to unforeseen circumstances, Bob Hinshelwood is unable to participate at this time. To replace the advertised seminars in June, Jan Abram will discuss her recently published book on Winnicott, The Surviving and Non Surviving Objects. Information is provided below. We apologise for the inconvenience and hope to be able to re-schedule Bob and Jan's seminars later in 2022. All seminars are being recorded and will be available for a limited time.


Seminar 1

"Psychoanalytic atmosphere - between intimacy and respect"
Presenter: Clara Nemas

26 March 10-11:30 am AEDT

Seminar 2

"The infantile in psychoanalytic practice"
Presenter: Florence Guignard

Thursday 5 May 8.00 - 9.30pm

Seminar 3 & 4

"The Surviving and Non Surviving Objects: Intrapsychic subjective objects and their evolution"

Presenter: Jan Abram

Part One - Thursday 2 June 8.00 - 9.30pm

This presentation starts with Abram’s interpretation of Winnicott’s 1968 paper ‘The Use of an Object’ and highlights how Winnicott’s late formulations offer psychoanalysis an alternative to the death instinct. The clinical example, from Chapter 3 of The Surviving Object, illuminates the necessary dynamic oscillations between psychic survival and non survival in the analytic encounter.

Part Two - Thursday 30 June 8.00 - 9.30pm

This presentation will explore the nature of the subjective object and highlight the specificity of object relations theory in Winnicott’s clinical paradigm as distinct from the Kleinian clinical paradigm. The clinical example, Chapter 4 of The Surviving Object, focuses on the fear of WOMAN in both men and women.

 

When
26 March 10-11:30 am AEDT
5 May 2 & 30th June 8-9:30pm AEST

Where
Online via zoom

Registration
4 Seminars $220 (inc GST)
1 Seminar $77 (inc GST)

Psychoanalytic atmosphere - between intimacy and respect.

Presenter: Clara Nemas

Clara Nemas, MD, IPA, is a training and supervising analyst of the Buenos Aires Psychoanalytic Association (APdeBA), child and adolescent psychoanalyst, and a member of the International Psychoanalytical Association. She maintains a full-time private psychoanalytic practice in Buenos Aires and was vice-president and scientific secretary of the APdeBA. She chairs the admissions and progression committee of the IPA China Committee and serves on the editorial board of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis. She is also a member of the Latin American Working Party on Comparative Clinical Methods and was Latin American Chair for the IPA Congress on The Infantile. She has published numerous papers on ethics, psychoanalytic theory, and clinical technique in working with adolescent patients, and is currently involved in teaching Kleinian and neo-Kleinian theory.

 

The infantile in psychoanalytic practice

Presenter: Florence Guignard

Florence Guignard, born in Geneva in 1934, is of Swiss and French nationality. She is a clinical psychologist and Child and Adolescent Training Member of the IPA. She is past Vice-President and Training Analyst of the Paris Psychoanalytic Society and Past Chair and present Counsellor of the IPA Committee on child and Adolescent Psychoanalysis. She founded the Association pour la Psychanalyse de l’Enfant in 1984, and the Société Européenne pour la Psychanalyse de l’Enfant et de l’Adolescent (SEPEA) in 1994. She chaired the team of l’Année Psychanalytique Internationale/IJP and has published more than 200 psychoanalytical papers in French, English, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Turkish and psychoanalytical reviews and book chapters in French, English, Italian and German. She has authored four books: Au Vif de l’Infantile (1996), Épître à l’objet (1997) both translated into Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Turkish; Quelle Psychanalyse pour le XXIe siècle? (2015), translated into English as Psychoanalytic concepts and Technique in Development. Psychoanalysis, Neuroscience and Physics, (Routledge 2020); Au vif de l’Infantile, aujourd’hui (2020) translated into English as The Infantile in Psychoanalytic Practice Today” (Routledge, 2022). She has two books forthcoming later in 2022 Le psychanalyste dans la cité and Conversations psychanalytiques. Une autobiographie with Sylvie Reignier.

 
 

The Surviving and Non Surviving Objects Intrapsychic
subjective objects and their evolution

Presenters: Jan Abram

Jan Abram is a training and supervising analyst of the British Psychoanalytical Society and in private practice in London. She is Visiting Professor of the Psychoanalysis Unit, University College London and currently Vice President of the European Psychoanalytic Federation. She is a Visiting Lecturer and supervisor at the Tavistock Clinic, London. In 2016 she was a Visiting Professor for the University of Kyoto, Japan, where she resided for a writing sabbatical. Since 2008 she has been a member of the Paris Group, a research group of the European Psychoanalytic Federation, and was its chair between 2016 and 2019. Jan Abram has published several books and articles notably: The Language of Winnicott, first published in 1996 and judged Outstanding Academic Book of the Year in 1997 (2nd edition 2007 and translated into several languages; Classic Book PEP); Donald Winnicott Today (2013) for the New Library of Psychoanalysis (shortlisted for a Gravida Award); and co-authored with R.D.Hinshelwood The Clinical Paradigms of Melanie Klein and Donald Winnicott: comparisons and dialogues (Routledge 2018). In September 2021, she published: The Surviving Object: psychoanalytic clinical essays on psychic survival-of-the-object (New Library, Routledge). She is presently working on a 2nd book with R.D. Hinshelwood – The Clinical Paradigms of Donald Winnicott and Wilfred Bion: comparisons and dialogues to be published by Routledge later this year.


APAS Open Days

Our guest speaker Alina Schellekes will present her fascinating paper

Remembering & Retranscripting in Psychoanalysis

This event will will showcase the contemporary nature and relevance of psychoanalysis in today's rapidly changing world. The conference's focus is on how to work with states of mind where there is a poorly developed sense of self.

Alina Schellekes esteemed guest speaker will deliver a paper “When Time Stood Still: Thoughts about Time Dimensions in Primitive Mental States”. In addition Australian keynote speakers will present stimulating papers, and offer an array of workshops for registrants.

 

When
Saturday 4th & Sunday 5th September, 2021

Where
Online via Zoom


Public Lecture: The Dread of Falling and Dissolving - Further Thoughts

with guest speaker Alina Schellekes

This paper illustrates the way Alina Schellekes works with different kinds of anxieties through her own dreams, art works & short stories. Psychoanalytic professionals and members of the public for all disciplines interested in mental health, are welcome to attend.

Alina Schellekes is a senior clinical psychologist and a training and supervising psychoanalyst of The Israel Psychoanalytic Society.

 

When
Wednesday 1st September, 2021
7.15pm - 9.15pm (AEST)

Where
Live via Zoom