The events below are in the process of being scheduled – updates will be announced on the list as they are confirmed.
The Critical Clinic
The critical clinic is a series of events that will address the psychic world as embedded in the social world with its various legacies. The critical clinic will serve to navigate a landscape of psychic devastations born of a world in a world of trouble.
The TRS AGM will start off this series of events with a dialogue with Lynne Layton.
we are holding under the theme of the critical clinic. The critical clinic reckons with systemic realities and imagines a social psychoanalytic that goes beyond individual pathology and treatment and orients to collective liberation.
The first event in the series will take place with the annual general meeting of TRS.
Lynne Layton will join us for a dialogue that will address the ideas and themes she discussed on a recent podcast. We will engage with Andrew Samuels
The Podcast ‘Between Us’ : Lynne Layton with John Totton Episode 54: Everybody Stays Chill
“Layton’s concept of the normative unconscious, which addresses the myriad of ways we all strive to maintain the status quo, has been influential to those who believe that the mind is shaped by social forces beyond the family. Racism and sexism play a central role, but these bigotries, that work to separate us and dominate some, also work in tandem with economic and political forces that seek to make us all subservient. Layton discusses the influence Erich Fromm had on her work, her critique of the neoliberal regime through a psychoanalytic lens, and how the controversies produced by such inquiries, are very much alive and well in a field that is capable of crying in terror at straw men like “wokeism” and “identity politics.”
The AGM is scheduled for Sunday Oct 19th 2.30 – 5.30pm on line (London time).
You are invited to listen to the podcast in the lead up to the AGM where we will join colleagues and Lynne Layton herself to discuss the ideas and themes that the podcast evokes.
The Relational School AGM
Date: Sunday Oct 19th
Time: 2.30 – 5.30pm (at the latest) London time. 2.30 – 4.00 with Lynne. 4.15-5.30pm max for the AGM.
Venue: Online. Reserve your place here: ticket.
Reflections on Autism and Neurodiversity
Natalie Clarke will present 2 talks:
Introduction to Neuroaffirming therapeutic practice for autistic adults.
What if autism wasn’t something to “fix,” but simply another way of being human? This lecture introduces the neurodiversity paradigm, which celebrates neurological differences as part of the richness of human diversity. Together, we’ll explore what it means to work in a neuroaffirming way with autistic adults in therapy, moving away from deficit-based ideas and towards approaches that honour the autistic way of being in the world. From my lived experience as a late-diagnosed autistic woman, I will share information working with late diagnosis and high-masked individuals (who are currently presenting for therapy in droves) as well as non-stereotypical presentations of autism.
Date: Sunday 16th of November
Time: 3-5.30pm
Venue: Online.
When the mask is like a closet: what happens and what to do when a ‘double mask’ appears in therapy.
After supporting many late-discovered clients on an unmasking journey, I started to realise that for some, the unmasking wasn’t the whole story. What we came to realise is that the mask had also been a kind of closet, hiding a queer or trans identity, hence the double mask. So the unmasking journey had to also start to include a coming-out process too. This talk speaks to my experience combining these two processes and reflections on what other therapists could learn about holding the double mask in mind when working with late-discovered autistic people.
Date: Sunday December 14th
Time: 3-5pm
Venue: Online.
Opening Up: Exploring Relational Diversity Beyond Monogamy with Alex Sanderson-Shortt and Niki D.
Relationships are beautifully complex, full of depth, connection and uniqueness.
Traditional relationship therapy often centres on couples and assumes monogamy as the default. In doing so, we can overlook the rich history and presence of non-monogamous ways of relating and unintentionally other clients who practice ethical or consensual non-monogamy (CNM).
Opening Up CPD, created by us, Alex & Niki, invites therapists to open their minds, hearts and practice. Rooted in decolonising, queer, and feminist perspectives, we’ve developed an Open and Polyamory (O&P) lens to explore the diversity of relationships in all their forms.
From polyamory and open relationships to swinging, relationship anarchy, queer-platonic connections, and beyond, this lens helps us meet relationally diverse clients with greater openness, awareness, and attunement in our work.
Resources:
MJ Barker Re-Writing the Rules
Jorge Ferrer
Kim Tallbear
Alok
Jessica Fern
Support during breakups
Kim Tallbear
Kim Tallbear
Kevin Patterson
Esther Perel & Margie Nichols
Ellecia Pain
Dan Savage
Date: Saturday January 10th
Time: 10am – 12.30pm
Venue: Online.
Chapter: Andrew Samuels The Activist Client : Social Responsibility, The Political Self and Clinical Practice in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis.
“The idea of the “activist client” is intended to be taken both literally and metaphorically—applying to some extent to a wider range of clients than actual activists. The paper develops a set of ideas about a “political turn” in psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, using the tag “the inner politician.” There is a focus on working directly with political material in the session, and the pros and cos of this practice are reviewed. Wider issues such as social responsibility and social spirituality are discussed, as well as an exploration of the limits of individual responsibility. Somespecific topics covered in the paper include the political roots of depression, difficulties with the concept of the therapeutic alliance from the point of view of democratic perspectives on clinical work, and a challenge to the unquestioned valuing of empathy (based on a reading of therapy though a Brechtian lens). There are numerous clinical examples”.
We will meet to discuss Andrew’s chapter and he will join us for a dialogue.
Date:
Time:
Venue: Online.
Paper: Jyoti M. Rao Social Justice Activism As Interpretation In A Loewaldian World
Student Activism as Interpretation by Jyoti M. Rao
We will meet to discuss Jyoti’s paper and hopefully be in dialogue with Jyoti.
Date:
Time:
Venue: Online.
Book : From the Clinic to the Streets: Psychoanalysis for Revolutionary Futures
A dialogue with the author.
Book overview
“Psychoanalysis is having a resurgence in popularity—but it is not helping patients navigate the harm of modern-day capitalism. Instead, it continues to enforce oppressive structures, state power, and reactionary politics.
Practising psychoanalytic clinician Lara Sheehi creates a thrilling argument for how seizing the means of psychoanalysis can transform it into one of many tools in service of revolution, showing how psychoanalysis can help unpack how psychological and emotional processes are mobilized by political power, capitalism, the state, oppression, and even genocide.
Arguing for a new, liberatory psychoanalysis, she calls for us to harness its radical power from the clinic to the streets”.
Date:
Time:
Venue: Online.
Resources:
Concerning Violence Documentary
The Critical Clinic: Living Room
Book : Helen George (Ed) et al Black Women, Trauma And Therapy: Revolutionising Therapeutic Thought And Practice (PCCS Books)
This powerful testimony to the growing confidence and reach of black women’s therapy in the UK today brings together leading theorists and practitioners to present their radical thinking and innovative work at the cutting edge of intersectionality. Its chapters are hard-hitting, incisive, challenging, shocking, lyrical and inspiring, often all at once. They cover a vast spectrum of issues impacting on black women’s mental health and wellbeing amid the ubiquity of racial and gender injustice, attacks and invisibility. Here you will find essays on childlessness and infertility, the black empathic approach, maternal health and epistemic justice, group work with black women, self-care in an unjust society, mixed-race multiplicity, African-centred approaches, healing transgenerational trauma, a black feminist ethics of care, and much more. The contributors describe how they have remodelled, evolved and enriched the tenets of counselling and psychotherapy orthodoxy to better meet their clients’ emotional, cultural, social and political needs. Inspired by the 2022 Community Trauma UK conference ‘Black Women, Trauma and Mental Health’, this book is a revolutionary resource for the counselling, psychotherapy and mental health professions.
A couple of events will be hosted by Foluke Taylor in dialogue with some of the contributors to this vital book.
Date:
Time:
Venue: Online.
Podcasts to go: we gather to reflect on a podcast.
This Machine Kills Fascism: John Totten in conversation with Sue Grand
Between Us: A Psychotherapy Podcast. Episode 58: This Machine Kills Fascism
Other reading by Sue Grand: Fascism’s Erotic Register
On Hatred: Perpetrator Fragments and Totalitarian Objects
Reflections & Experiences of the Training Institution
Paper : Lynne Layton – a paper that was originally presented at the 2024 AGM.
Interest was shown last year in spending more time with the paper that Lynne shared with us – this is an opportunity for extended discussion.
You are invited to read the paper and join colleagues for reflection and discussion.
Who Speaks for Fromm in this Political Moment? Psychoanalytic Institutions and the Authoritarian Center.
Date:
Time:
Venue: Online.
Podcast Couched: Surviving Institutional Failures: Expanding the Psychoanalytic Canon
With Foluke Taylor & Jyoti Rao. Season 5, Ep. 3 Wednesday, April 2, 2025
Join us for this poetic and incisive conversation between Foluke Taylor and Jyoti Rao. Our guests explore the toxicity of institutional stasis and the subversive urgency of grief and grievance. Through their conversation they model inclusivity, interdisciplinarity, and intimacy offering us an alternative path through.
Paper: Tracey Morgan : Must We Drown in the Wake? Notes on Addressing Racism at Psychoanalytic Institutes
From the abstract:
In response to the Holmes Commission on Racial Equality in American Psychoanalysis report that tells us that “action is needed at all levels,” a series of questions and concepts are explored to discern whether activism, and particularly activism addressing racism, is possible within the field of psychoanalysis.
Video presentation of the paper.
What is there to learn from the US experience? What is/was your experience?
The Life and Deep Time of Still Hear an un/exceptional account of a black space in a predominantly white institution. Foluke Taylor’s blog post.
You are invited to listen to the Couched podcast, read Tracy’s paper (or view the video) and read Foluke’s account of black space in white institutions. We will then gather to discuss the work of these pieces.
Other relevant readings that might be of interest:
Egg Dialogue: Towards a Trans Psychoanalytic by Alice Kentridge, M.Sc., & Iggy Robinson, M.Sc.
Abolish the Psychoanalytic Institute! An (im)modest proposal I delivered at a Decentralized Learning Experience hosted by Psychoanalytic Inquiry.
CARTER J. CARTER, PH.D LICSW
Date:
Time:
Venue: Online.
On Writing
A series of dialogues, workshops and talks exploring writing and the writer:
Susie Orbach on writing – a conversational interview about writing.
Peer writing group for TRS members who wish to gather and form peer writing groups. We will host an on line and in person gathering if there is enough interest.
Navigating the obstacles to writing – practices that support writing to happen.
A few TRS members have offered to host writing workshops. We will be in touch with those who have made offers and arrange a schedule of events.
Ashi Singh : In Defence of Leisure Experiments in Living with Marion Milner
By Akshi Sing
Story Telling – Sandra Hilton. Date
Attachment dialogues:
Paper: Manu Bazzano After Attachment Theory
Paper & audio: Ayoto Attachment Theory is White Supremacy in a Lab Coat
How the Empire Pathologized Survival and Sold It Back as Healing
A dialogue in response to the two offerings.
Date:
Time:
Venue: Online.
Chance Czyzselska in dialogue with Dr Stephanie Cook about their respective chapters in a forth coming book. Details to follow.
Date:
Time:
Venue: Online.
The Relational School 