Seminar series: Meaning and Mindedness: Encounters between Philosophy and Psychoanalysis

Seminar Two: “The Unconscious”
Friday 29 October 2010, 19:00 – 21:00.

Speaker: Candace Vogler (Professor of Philosophy, University of Chicago)
Discussant: David Bell (Psychoanalyst & Consultant Psychotherapist, Tavistock Clinic; President, British Psychoanalytical Society)

All seminars in the series will be held at the Tavistock Centre, 120 Belsize Lane, London NW3 5BA
For directions please go here.

About the Series

What is it to have a mind? What gives our lives meaning and value? Clinicians touch on these questions daily in their work with patients, drawing on psychological models of human nature and development. But they have also been among the central questions of philosophy from Plato and Aristotle to the present day. This series of interdisciplinary seminars aims to bring together prominent philosophers, clinicians and others with a view to deepening our understanding of these fundamental questions. The series is not intended as a seminar in the philosophy of psychoanalysis – that is, an enterprise in which philosophers are the investigators and psychoanalysts the objects of investigation – but focuses instead on topics that are objects of interest both to psychoanalysis and to philosophy. By exposing clinicians to the way philosophers think about issues relevant for them, and by enabling philosophers to see how their theories might be put to use in work with patients, the series should provide an opportunity to explore the common ground between these two kinds of inquiry, both of which are committed to understanding something of the truth about human nature and human living. The series is equally suited to philosophers (including graduate students in philosophy), clinicians (including those seeking Continuing Professional Development), and to trainees.

Each seminar will last two hours (19:00 – 21:00) and consist of a paper (45 mins), a response (15 mins), followed by discussion. Whenever the paper is presented by a philosopher, the response will be from a clinician and vice versa. All of our speakers are well respected in their own field, but all have been asked to make sure they present their ideas in a way that is accessible not only to fellow specialists, but to a mixed clinical and academic audience from a range of disciplinary backgrounds.

Further seminars will take place as follows:

• Empathy and Knowledge of Others
Friday 26th November 2010, speaker: Peter Goldie (Professor of Philosophy, Manchester), discussant: Peter Hobson (Professor of Developmental Psychopathology, UCL;
Psychoanalyst and Consultant Psychotherapist, Tavistock Clinic)

• Lying and Pretending
Friday 28 January 2011, speaker: Mary Target (Psychoanalyst and Clinical Psychologist; Professor of Psychoanalysis, UCL), discussant: Louise Braddock (Bye-Fellow in
Philosophy, Girton College, Cambridge)

• Intimacy
Friday 25th February 2011, speaker: Jeremy Holmes (Consultant Psychotherapist; Visiting Professor, Clinical Psychology, Exeter), discussant: Simon May (Research Fellow,
Philosophy, Birkbeck)

• The Embodied Mind
25th March 2011, speaker: Shaun Gallagher (Chair and Professor of Philosophy, Director of Cognitive Sciences Program, U. of Central Florida), discussant: Peter Shoenberg
(Consultant Psychiatrist in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist, Camden Psychotherapy Service)

• Autonomy
29th April 2011, speaker: Derek Bolton (Professor of Philosophy and Psychopathology, Institute of Psychiatry, KCL; Hon. Consultant Clinical Psychologist, South London and
Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust), discussant: Margaret Rustin (Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist, Tavistock Clinic)

• Illusion and Belief
27th May 2011, speaker: Leon Kleimberg (Training Analyst, British Psychoanalytical Society; Visiting Lecturer, Psychoanalytic Studies, UCL; Adult Dept., Tavistock Clinic),
discussant: Alan Thomas (Professor of Philosophy, Tilburg)

• Depression
24th June 2011, speaker: Matthew Ratcliffe (Professor of Philosophy, Durham), discussant: David Taylor (Psychoanalyst and Consultant Psychotherapist, Tavistock Clinic)

• Psychoanalysis and Philosophy
8th July 2011, speaker: Michael Brearley (Psychoanalyst; former President, British Psychoanalytical Society), discussant: Michael Rustin (Professor of Sociology, UEL; Visiting
Professor, Tavistock Clinic)

For further details please contact events@tavi-port.org. There is a fee for each seminar of £10 per person, though please note that free places are available for philosophers, philosophy students and clinical trainees. These will be offered first come first served. To book, or to register for a free place, please contact:

Conference, Events and Marketing Unit, The Tavistock Centre, 120 Belsize Lane, London NW3 5BA
T: 020 8938 2548
F: 020 7447 3837
events@tavi-port.org
http://www.tavistockandportman.ac.uk/cpd15

Organisers: Edward Harcourt, Faculty of Philosophy, Oxford University; Sarah Majid, Adult Department, The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust.

The organizers gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Wellcome Trust.