A crucial, must do event on the social and professional calendar of all good psychoanalytically oriented therapists, analysts, academics and anyone else who is interested here in Australia, is the annual Freud Conference in Melbourne. Convened, in recent years, by a panel of practitioners drawn from the various psychoanalytic associations, the current Freud Conference is heir to the Freud Conferences of the 1980s, held by the beach at a guest house – Erskine House – in the Victorian coastal town of Lorne. Nowadays it is held in May, usually the third Saturday,and, during the last few years at the Treacy Centre in Parkville, Melbourne… opposite a sports ground and not too far from the Zoo… if one wants a quick visit during lunch-time. For the 2013 conference the venue has changed. It will be around the corner from the Treacy Centre, or at least not too far away, at The Melbourne Brain Centre, Kenneth Myer Building, 30 Royal Parade, Parkville… across the road from the University of Melbourne.

Douglas Kirsner, a philosopher and academic together with Ed Harari a psychiatrist, hatched the idea together one day over coffee… and the rest, as they say, is history.

Here is the link to Doug’s account  – it needs no more from me….

Next year’s conference, to be held on 18 May next year will be about psychoanalysis and politics, about the emergence of terrorism and refugees. Nancy Hollander will be a keynote speaker as will be Julian Burnside whose legal work on behalf of refugees is well known here in Australia.

Further details on the Freud Conference website..