Whilst relational psychoanalysis has been an arena where the social shaping of teh psyche has been
We are in a significant moment, one where lives and much of the familar set of arrangements is thrown up in the air and this becomes a moment of possibility as well as crisis. This series of events will create an arena in which to think about what just happened, what was happening before and what might happen if we take this moment to reconfigure and reevaluate.
We don’t know what we are heading into. We do know that many are suffering already. We also know that the psychological practices we ahve been engaged in as therapists barely touch the sides of what is needed.
I have become convinced over time that what primarily keeps alive the claim in our field that psychic reality can be understood without reference to social location is precisely the race and class privilege enjoyed by the dominant social groups to which our theory makers generally belong…
Lynne Layton
Intersectional Considerations within the COVID19 Pandemic
This gathering on zoom will be an opportunity to reflect on the impact of COVID19, its wider impact and meanings alongside how we might think about it relationally and through various intersectional lenses.
There has been a lot of skilling up and re-orientation to creating a virtual therapeuic space between people via electronic devices.
We will have a few brief presentations followed by opportunities to reflect together in break out rooms. To consider what this moment will unofld into and what is called for in us as theraputs.
As we work amidst the perils of a pandemic, any global issue beyond the immediate one may seem irrelevant and trivial. However, we are clinicians trained in the search for meaning, in an examination of our own contribution to suffering, and in understanding the larger systems within which traumas are generated.
With covid19, the unseen, nonhuman world has invaded both our psychic space and the consulting room, and has obliterated the physical sharing of dyadic offices. In this seminar, we will share our understanding of the arising of covid19 during times of unparalleled exploitation of the nonhuman world, and how we as clinicians both resist, and can shift towards, a more conscious participation in our intersubjective relationship with the ecosystem.
I have become convinced over time that what primarily keeps alive the claim in our field that psychic reality can be understood without reference to social location is precisely the race and class privilege enjoyed by the dominant social groups to which our theory makers generally belong.
If we are challening and challenged by the return to normal, what might our work need to look like?
(I am thinking of 3 people sharing their responses – anyone interested??)
What has this moment thrown up for you, for us collectively to think about, bear and contain? What are you thinking with at this time?
Date & time: TBC (2.5 hours ?) Venue: Zoom
Venue: Zoom
Reserving a place:
Book Launch: Toward a Social Psychoanalysis
Lynne Layton and Marianna Leavy-Sperounis will be talking about Towards a Social Psychoanalysis. The book is part of the Relational Perspectives Book Series from Routeledge and spans 20 years of Lynne’s work addressing the psychological as a political landscape.
Lynne and Marianna will be in conversation with TRS Chair Robert Downes (and another of the exec or membership?) followed by audience reflections and questions.
The book is available here ☞ Routeledge
Date & time: TBC (2 hours ?)
Venue: Zoom
Reserve your place here: TBC
Date: TBC
Venue: TBC.
Reserving a place: please let Jane know of your interest and if there is enough interest we will organise a date and space. therelationalschool@gmail.com
Relational Words
One way of including more voices and accounts of relational work, thought and practice is to extend the forms of writing aout our work. We are not all suited to or practiced in writing formal papers. This can be limiting and exclusionary. So we want to offer a space to come and ‘play’ with writing forms as a way of engaging with relational thought and practice. This could lead to some kind of electronic publication (pdf) that could be shared within TRS as well as something you do solely for yourself or use as a supervisory tool.
This space will offer an opportunity to explore ways into writing about your work and thinking – be it through poetry, flash clinical fact/fiction, list making amongst other options. Bring pen, paper, lap top. As a start we will begin by drawing on some of the ideas in Structure and Spontaneity in Clinical Prose by Suzi Naiburg.
Date: TBC
Venue: TBC.
Reserving a place: please let Jane know of your interest and if there is enough interest we will organise a date and space. therelationalschool@gmail.com
A Carrier Bag of Intersectional Relational Theory and Practice
I would go so far as to say that the natural, proper, fitting shape of the novel might be that of a sack, a bag. A book holds words. Words hold things. They bear meanings. A novel is a medicine bundle, holding things in a particular, powerful relation to one another and to us.
Ursula Le Guin
Ursula Le Guin’s notion of the carrier bag theory of fiction offers us a metaphor for considering our relationship to relational theory and practice. This series of talks, presentations and dialogues will offer an opporuntity to consider the carrier bag contents of a range of relational practitioners and thinkers.
In Le Guins essay she offers the notion that the first tool was a container
We each take up the relational paradigm differently. This series of seminars will be an opportunity to hear a range of voices speak to relational thought and practice and to take a look at what’s in your bag.
Aaron Balick – will share his particular overview of relational theory and thought.
One other – tbc Karen Minikin might be up for it.
One Other – ideas: Helena Hargaden (recent relational supervision book) any of you fancy doing one? There’s Susie and Andrew too as possibilities – the history of relational ideas in little Britain.
Dates: TBC ( Sunday afternoons? ) (Thurs eves?) Venue: Zoom
Reserve your place here:
Date: TBC
Venue: TBC.
Reserving a place:
One way of including more voices and accounts of relational work, thought and practice is to extend the forms of writing aout our work. We are not all suited to or practiced in writing formal papers. This can be limiting and exclusionary. So we want to offer a space to come and ‘play’ with writing forms as a way of engaging with relational thought and practice. This could lead to some kind of electronic publication (pdf) that could be shared within TRS as well as something you do solely for yourself or use as a supervisory tool.
This space will offer an opportunity to explore ways into writing about your work and thinking – be it through poetry, flash clinical fact/fiction, list making amongst other options. Bring pen, paper, lap top. As a start we will begin by drawing on some of the ideas in Structure and Spontaneity in Clinical Prose by Suzi Naiburg.
Date: TBC
Venue: TBC.
Reserving a place: please let Jane know of your interest and if there is enough interest we will organise a date and space. therelationalschool@gmail.com
There will be refreshments and some snacks.
The Relational School 