IN THIS EPISODE:
A fractured self
The ego, the id and the superego
Why did Freud develop a new model?
Devils and angels
People fall ill of their moral ideals
A horse and a rider
The ego is like a politician
The goal of analysis is to stop the ego being so silly
More info: www.freud.org.uk/education/
Please click here to visit ‘Web of Stories’ site and listen to Oliver Sacks the neurologist and author of Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat talking about his 46-year-long analysis. “I think that we are beginning to get somewhere now…”
Adam Phillips: “On the one hand, psychoanalysis is practical in the sense that there is an attempt to solve a problem, or to cure somebody, or at least to address their suffering. But the other thing that psychoanalysis does is that the project is to enable somebody to speak. It’s the attempt to create the conditions in which somebody can speak themselves as fully as possible.”
[Click here to read the whole article on The Economist site]
Click here to read the whole of the article on the Haaretz website.
Q: What actually gets lost when someone takes his symptoms to a cognitive psychologist?
Laurent: “I can tell you where I do not agree with my colleagues from the ethical viewpoint. I am opposed to the behavioral aspect that exists in the usual combination of cognitive-behavioral therapy. The patient is liable to find himself in a confrontation with a powerful authority who tries to impose a behavioral change with a ‘one size fits all’ approach. As though good behavior exists that can be standardized. That is not only harmful to the subject, it is genuinely dangerous to the ideals of freedom. In 1971, at the height of the behaviorist ‘craze,’ Skinner [B.F. Skinner, the father of behaviorism] told Time magazine that freedom is a luxury we can’t afford.
It’s very good to hear that Mariana Otero’s acclaimed film about Le Courtil, the Lacanian-oriented treatment centre on the French-Belgium border for children, adolescents and adults with mental health problems, will be released with subtitles in the UK in October. We’ll try to see about getting a showing in Bristol somehow…
“Alysson considers her body with mistrust. Evanne spins and twists until he collapses. Amina can’t manage to make words come out of her mouth. At the border between France and Belgium there exists a special place which takes care of psychologically and socially challenged children. Day after day, the adults working there try to understand the enigma that each of these children represent and invent, case by case, without ever imposing anything, solutions that will help them live peaceful lives.”
Click the image below to watch the trailer for the film on YouTube: 
Click the image above to watch the full 74 minute documentary on the Open Dialogue Approach, an innovative treatment for psychosis which has been pioneered recently in Finland.
Carina Hakansson speaks about the groundbreaking ‘Open Dialogue Approach’ to the in-patient treatment of psychosis in Sweden. [Click here to view the talk on YouTube]
Can theatre offer a cure for psychosis? It’s unlikely – and it would be unwise for any theatre-maker even to try. What theatre can do, though, is convey the experience of psychosis: the hallucinations and delusions – often terrifying, sometimes comical – that define reality for those with schizophrenia and related conditions. [Click here to read the rest of the article on the Guardian site.]
Videos from ‘Psychoanalysis and Artistic Process – a day of dialogues between artists and psychoanalysts’ which took place on 25th February 2012 at University College London. Discussion between artists and psychoanalysts including Kenneth Wright, Sharon Kivland, Grayson Perry, Valerie Sinason, Martin Creed and Lesley Caldwell.
[To view these videos on Vimeo, please click here (page 1) and here (page2)]
