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The Melanie Klein Trust      LONDON CONFERENCE

In honour of Dr Hanna Segal
 

WORKING WITH PHANTASY

Saturday 7 June 2008
09.30 – 17.30 hrs

followed by a Reception

Venue
Royal College of Physicians
Regent’s Park, London NW1 4LE

Chair

Dr Gigliola Fornari Spoto

Speakers

Ms Ignês Sodré:   Hysterical Phantasies, Bisexuality and the Question of Bad Faith

Dr David Taylor:   Phantasy and Truth

Discussants

Dr Guillermo Bodner (Barcelona)

Dr Helmut Hinz (Tübingen)

Sunday, 8 June 2008

09.30 – 13.00 hrs

On Sunday morning senior analysts will be available for clinical seminars.

Registration

Up to and including 1 May 2008                                                      Students

Saturday conference, to include lunch and Reception                         £120        £60                  

Saturday conference and Sunday Seminar                                      £180        £90

After 1 May 2008

Saturday conference, to include lunch and Reception                       £150          £75               

Saturday conference and Sunday Seminar                                     £210        £105

Contact:                                                                     Tel:  +44 (0) 208 883 1700

Mary Block                                                                Email: KleinTrust@aol.com

Melanie Klein Trust                                            www.melanie-klein-trust.org.uk

                                                                Booking Form

Melanie Klein Trust Conference
Saturday June 7th
Working with Phantasy

The Melanie Klein Trust Conference Series is established to take place every two years on contemporary themes developed by Kleinian Analysts.
 
 
We are writing to let you know about this year’s Melanie Klein Trust Conference. This year’s conference will honour Dr Hanna Segal’s 90th Birthday. It will take a current look at the importance of unconscious phantasy in our work - a central topic of Hanna Segal’s major contributions. The Conference will be chaired by Gigliola Fornari-Spoto. Its subject is Working with Phantasy. The speakers will be Ignès Sodre and David Taylor. Their papers will be discussed by Guillermo Bodner (Barcelona) and Helmut Hinz (Tübingen) respectively. Both discussants are senior European analysts influenced by the work of Melanie Klein.

Ignès Sodre’s paper “Hysterical Phantasies, Bisexuality and the Question of Bad Faith” deals with unconscious phantasies connected with the Oedipus Complex and the Primal Scene. She goes back to Freud’s 1908 paper “Hysterical Phantasies and their Relation to Bisexuality” which links “hysterical attacks” to unconscious multiple and near-simultaneous identifications in a re-enactment of the primal scene. She argues that the function of a core phantasy in which the entirety of the primal scene is perpetually taking place in the present with three rather than two characters involved is to obviate the possibility of exclusion and consequently the existence of an observer position from which thinking can take place.
 
David Taylor’s paper, Phantasy & Truth explores issues connected with interpreting unconscious phantasy. David reviews both Klein’s and Segal’s contributions and then raises the question of how we gain access to deeper and earlier layers of the personality and their phantasy content. The identification of subtle interactions in the “here and now” has been an important advance, but he suggests that such interpretations may not encompass some of the most important of psychoanalytic truths about the human personality.

Previous topics in the Conference Series have been:
 
In 2000, on the work of Herbert Rosenfeld with John Steiner as the conference chair. It had major papers by Edna O’Shaughnessy, Ron Britton and Riccardo Steiner with discussions by Michael Feldman and Hanna Segal. A book based on the conference is shortly to be published.
 
In 2002 the conference was chaired by Edna O’Shaughnessy. It dealt with Uncertainty: papers by Michael Feldman, Irma Brenman Pick and Ignès Sodre.
 
In 2004 the conference was chaired by Patricia Daniel on, “Bad Objects and What We Do With Them”. Papers by Erika Bard, Claire Cripwell Cyril Couve with discussions by Michael Feldman, Ron Britton and John Steiner.
 
And in 2006 conference theme was “Problems with “Good Objects” with papers by Matthew Patrick and Gigliola Fornari-Spoto.
 
 
The conference will be held at the Royal College of Physicians in Regent’s Park. This is a very pleasant, central location with excellent facilities. As previously, clinical seminars led by senior London analysts will be offered on Sunday morning.

John Steiner and Gigliola Fornari-Spoto (Conference Organisers)
 
For further information and to register contact:
Mary Block, The Conference Secretary, The Melanie Klein Trust, 21 Goodwyns Vale, London N10 2HA
Fax: +44 (0)208 883 7976
 E-mail: Mary2Block@aol.com  or The Melanie Klein Trust Website:
http://www.melanie-klein-trust.org.uk/
 

 

      The Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust Events

• Masters Course in Psychoanalytic Theory in the Psychoanalysis Unit, University College London
   
• Masters degree courses in 'Psychoanalytic Studies', in 'Applied Psychoanalysis' and 'Psychoanalysis and Social and Cultural Studies' at the Centre for Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex, UK
   
• Anglia Polytechnic University - MSc in the Psychodynamics of the Psychoses: A post-graduate course of study designed to further theoretical and clinical understanding of psychosis
•  

Copyright © 2006 British Psychoanalytical Society & Institute of Psychoanalysis,
London

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