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Existentialism, Psychoanalysis and Beyond. Presented by R A Younis D.Phil. Available now in Power Point Format and is the 4th Lecture in the Neville Symington Lecture Series.

Latest lectures

Caring for our World. Caring for our Mind.

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Maurice Whelan's talk and seperate discussion

In response to developments on the political landscape of the world the Sydney Institute of Psychoanalysis presents a Public Conversation by Sydney psychoanalyst Maurice Whelan who will present a paper entitled Caring for our World, Caring for our Mind. The paper will be followed by a panel discussion. The panel includes Australian writer David Malouf.

There is widespread alarm and disbelief which has increased significantly since the inauguration of a new president in the USA. Many people are in a state of shock. Before we can care for the world we have to care for our own mind. Chekhov said, ‘Art doesn’t have to solve problems; it just has to formulate them correctly.’ This conversation may not solve the problems we are presented with, but may help us to formulate them better and recover our capacity to think.

2 x MP3 files (00KB)

Psychoanalysis and Buddhism: Moonlight Reflected in Dewdrops

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A series of 6 lectures

The title of these lectures is a quote from Dogen’s poem “To what shall / I liken this world? / Moonlight reflected / In dewdrops, / Shaken from a crane’s bill.” In Japanese poetry “cranes” (being long lived) represent what endures, “dew drops” transience & “moonlight” enlightenment. This series of six lectures gathers together these elements in psychoanalysis & Buddhism to show how they dynamically relate to & reflect each other.

ZIP: 6 x MP3 files (00KB)

Susie Obach talking about navigating our culture's body anxiety

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Susie Orbach is a psychoanalyst and writer. Her interests have centred around feminism & psychoanalysis, the construction of femininity and gender, globalisation & body image and emotional literacy. Her numerous publications include the classic Fat is a Feminist Issue, The Impossibility of Sex and her latest book Bodies. In this discussion Susie explores the multiple pressures which have combined to create body insecurity. She explores the role of visual culture and the ways in which the family setting is now fraught around food and body image issues, aided by industries who profit from creating body unhappiness. She suggests ways to fight back to claim the body as a place to live from rather than be victimised by the style and diet industries.

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If you can’t hear the silence you are not listening to the words

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In this talk Maurice Whelan novelist, poet, and psychoanalyst, examines the creative mind. He is interested in the mind of the writer and in the creativity that is necessary to live a life. He explains how a creative mind is nourished and protected. He explores the importance of silence. He argues for a full engagement with everyday emotional experience. He poses questions: How does a writer take ordinary events and from them make an extraordinary story? Where is transformational energy to be found? Maurice views writing a novel or a poem as an act of personal expression and social communication – a writer must always have a reader in mind. In advancing his ideas he will draw on his own prose and poetry and on two Irish writers, the poet Seamus Heaney, and the novelist John McGahern. James Joyce said a piano was a coffin of music that needed a pianist to play it to life. John McGahern added that a book is a coffin of words; it is the reader who breathes it to life.

ZIP: MP3 Audio, Time 17.50 (00MB)

Other lectures

A series of 6 public lectures by Neville Symington

These lectures are an attempt to delve deeper into the mind: how might we understand the ways in which minds communicate with each other; what is it that obstructs such communication; the way we think about these things; and the goals which need to be aimed for affects profoundly the way we communicate with our patients.

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Lecture 1: What is Psycho-Analysis Part 1
Lecture 2: What is Psycho-Analysis Part 2
Lecture 3: The Significance of the Super-Ego
Lecture 4: The Subjective vs The Robot
Lecture 5: Attention and Repression
Lecture 6: Person Creates Person

A series of 10 lectures by John McClean and Maurice Whelan

"The Controversial Discussions" was a name given to a series of meetings held in the British Psychoanalytical Society in London in the 1940's. But discussions of a controversial nature have been a feature of psychoanalysis since it was founded, and our contention is that if psychoanalysis ever ceases to be controversial that it will have ceased to be a viable force in people's lives.

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Our starting point was the British Controversial Discussions. We explore not just the scientific ideas that were put forward by the different parties but examine also the political, social, historical, administrative and personal aspects of the debate, on the premise that you can only understand something properly if you place it in its total context.

As we progress through the series we cover the history of psychoanalytic ideas presenting the part played by Sigmund Freud, Sandor Ferenczi, Otto Rank, Karl Abraham, Anna Freud, Melanie Klein, Ronald Fairbairn, Donald Winnicott, Michael Balint, John Bowlby, Wilfred Bion and others. However, we remain primarily interested not just in the content of the various schools of thought, but in how the struggles over knowledge took place. As well as asking questions like, what is psychoanalytic truth and knowledge, we look at how people lay claim to knowing truth, and how the battles can be as much for peoples' hearts as for their minds. So attention is given to the construction of theory and the inter-relatedness of ideas as much as to any individual set of ideas. Another important strand that runs through the series is a critical appraisal of the various sets of ideas. The very structure of the course and the juxtaposition of conflicting concepts and approaches provides an in built climate of critical examination. The course is however, not just about "pure theory". As a lot of the debates have been about what goes on in the consulting room, our explorations encompass practice and technique.

The series of lectures can be used in different ways. If you are a beginner it will provide you with a useful map to find your way through what can be a complex maze. If you already have some familiarity with some of the people involved it will enable you to historically locate and examine them.

Lecture 1 and 2: "The Freud-Klein Controversies"
The disputes that took place in the British Psychoanalytical Society during 1941 and 1945 that became known as "The Controversial Discussions" are examined in detail. This involves looking not just as the scientific disagreements but also at the personal, institutional, cultural and historical dimensions.

Lecture 3: "Freud, Abraham and Klein"
Thinking about psychic reality, as illustrated by the emergence of an object relations approach in the work and interaction of these three analysts.

Lecture 4: "Suttie, Rank and Fairbairn"
The development of an object relations theory of the personality.

Lecture 5: "Ferenczi and Freud"
The impact of psychic reality on the analyst, as illustrated by the personal and professional relationship between these two men.

Lecture 6: "Bowlby and his Influence"
What kind of knowledge does the work of Bowlby make available to us, and how has this developed in contemporary psychoanalysis?

Lecture 7: "Ferenczi's legacy"
Developments since Ferenczi in our thinking about regression and its impact on the patient and analyst.

Lecture 8: A return to The British Controversial Discussions
The deliberations of the Training Committee are examined. In particular the contributions of James Strachey, Ella Freeman Sharpe, Marjorie Brierley and Sylvia Payne are presented.

Lecture 9: "Institutional Dynamics"
An enquiry into the institutional factors during the 1941- 1945 Controversial Discussions and into how group and institutional factors effect the work of the psychoanalyst and psychotherapist.

Lecture 10: "Meaning and Metapsychology"
A gathering together and a synthesis of the various strands of thought that have been explored during the series.

A group of 5 lectures on Bion

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Lecture 1: "Bion the Man" Mr Neville Symington

Lecture 2: "Bion and the Group" Dr Jim Telfer

Lecture 3: "All the Rage: Bion and Destructiveness" Dr Paul Schimmel

Lecture 4 and 5: "Psychic Pain" & "Bion the Mystic" Dr Shahid Najeeb

Lectures on CD

Filmed at the Sydney Jewish Museum