Four papers from leading psychoanalysts:

Otto Kernberg, Michael Feldman, Sara Boffito, and Sun Ju Chung.

Chaired by Francis Grier, Editor-In-Chief, International Journal of Psychoanalysis

A recording of the conference will be shared with all those who register. Foreign language subtitles will be available.

Violence takes an infinite number of forms. In recent times, the IJP has explored extreme external violence and its causes. In this year’s IJP Conference, we turn the focus inward, to our specialised area of the consulting room and the psychoanalytic couple. Here, physical acts of violence may still occur, but our main concern will be violence in the transference and countertransference – sometimes overt, but often subtle, including unconscious forms of hostile aggression. This too takes an infinite number of forms.

The psychological violence experienced by many children in the supposedly safe environment of their homes – from parents, siblings and close relatives – may become a dynamic part of their characters, later enacted with the analyst. The roles of violator and victim can move fluidly between analyst and patient. But if this is internalised violence, we must also consider violence arising from the innate character of the young child. Violence can sometimes be on the side of life, and it is not always easy to distinguish this from more spoiling, envious or sadomasochistic forms of violence that generate deep gratifications and addictions, which are notoriously difficult to understand, let alone to shift – and which again are enacted within the analytic couple. A feature of the conference papers is that these issues will be explored not only in relation to adult psychoanalysis, but also through clinical work with adolescents and young children, in all cases with analytic authors who are leaders in our contemporary field.

Chaired by Francis Grier, Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis, the conference explores these vital psychoanalytic questions of our time.

Programme

11.00 – 11.15 Welcome and Introduction: Francis Grier

11.15 – 12.30 Paper 1: Michael Feldman — Lamashtu: Toxic Envy in the Environment of the Psychoanalytic Consulting Room

1.00 – 2.15 Paper 2: Sara Boffito — “In Search of Existence”: Violence and Narrative Play in the Analysis of a Young Child

2.30 – 3.45 Paper 3: Sun Ju Chung — To Be Found in the Dark: Violence, Attachment, and Object Survival in the Analysis of an Adolescent

4.15 – 5.30 Paper 4: Otto Kernberg — Title TBC

5.30 – 6.00 — Concluding remarks