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Past 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.
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 respectPresenter: Clara Nemas
Thursday 22 August 8-9.30pm
Seminar 2
The aesthetic model in psychoanalytic practicePresenter: 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 ClaustrumPresenter: 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 PatientPresenter: Karen Proner
Thursday 19 September 8-9.30pm
Seminar 5
In Conversation with Clara Nemas, Angelika Staehle and Karen PronerThursday 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.
Seminar Series 15 February to 14 March, 2024
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. Online via Zoom
The Body of the Analyst and the Analytic SettingPresenter: Alessandra Lemma
Skin Deep: an appealing paradox
Presenter: Virginia Ungar
Metaphoric Metonymic and Psychotic Somatoform Dissociation
Presenter: Dana Amir
The world we inhabit: the phantasy of the mother's body
Presenter: Clara Nemas
Musicality in the consulting room
Presenter: Francis Grier
APAS 50th Anniversary Conference October, 2023
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 Thursdays 15th - 29th June, 2023
"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.
"The analyst's identity challenged by the reality of today's adolescents"Presenter: Florence Guignard
"On Winnicott's concept of the 'Fear of Breakdown"
Presenter: Jan Abram
"Internal and External: psychoanalysis as an experience of dialectic reality"
Presenter: Heribert Blass
Neville Symington Commemorative Conference 25 - 26 November, 2022
In-room & online via Zoom
"Spirited Conversations"
With keynote speaker, Michael BrearleyThe 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.
Annual Conference Days 10-11 September, 2022
"Navigating Boundaries: Too close / Too far" - With Professor Glen Gabbard, USA, Guest Speaker (online)
Online via zoomThe 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.
Encountering The Infantile In The Analytic Relationship 4 Part Seminar Series 26 March - 30 June, 2022
Online via Zoom
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.
"Psychoanalytic atmosphere -
between intimacy and respect"
Presenter: Clara Nemas
"The infantile in psychoanalytic practice"
Presenter: Florence Guignard
"The Surviving and Non Surviving Objects: Intrapsychic subjective objects and their evolution"
Presenter: Jan Abram
Part 1 and 2
Presenter: Clara Nemas
"The infantile in psychoanalytic practice"
Presenter: Florence Guignard
"The Surviving and Non Surviving Objects: Intrapsychic subjective objects and their evolution"
Presenter: Jan Abram
Part 1 and 2
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