Monthly Archives: June 2013

A New Journal

17 Monday Jun 2013

Posted by in Journals

≈ 2 Comments

The first volume of the Australian Journal of Psychotherapy was published in 1982. It also marked the formation and formalisation of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Association of Australia. It was, essentially, the first local ‘broad church’ – Australian-  journal on psychoanalytic theory and practice in the country. The Lacanian based ‘Papers of the Freudian School of Melbourne’, was first published in 1979. Edited by a small group chaired by Melbourne Psychoanalyst Leonardo Rodriguez, the new Australian Journal of Psychotherapy contained seven papers and three book reviews, including member of the editorial committee Joan Christie’s piece on Janet Malcolm’s ‘Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession’.  In time, the journal has accepted and published contribution from psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, couple therapists and social theorists from Australia and internationally. Since then a few other periodicals have emerged: the quarterly Psychotherapy in Australia which began in 1994, and the online journal of the Australian Psychoanalytical Society, Psychoanalysis Downunder which also began during the 1990s.

Developed by a team of passionately committed psychotherapists, most of whom were from Melbourne, it was hoped that the journal would become ‘a reading space for those interested in the developments of the talking cure and in reflections about the place of psychotherapy in the life of our culture. Founded on the same principles that made the therapeutic experience possible – to make the unconscious conscious… to be prepared to learn the truth… which nevertheless was not the private property of anyone, no matter how powerful’. Wise words. And so the journal was launched with a series of articles by several senior clinicians – on child and adolescent psychotherapy, on the technical issue of managing transference and countertransference in the consulting room and the formation of the human group. There was an article on linguistics and another on the ‘cultural vicissitudes of the human drives’.

In his preface to the journal Loren Borland, then President of the Psychotherapy Association of Australia, wrote briefly of the history of psychoanalytic thinking and practice in Australia and the formation.  It brought together a number of like-minded people and groups across Australia, Borland noted.They may have operated independently of one another but followed the same trajectory as to purpose and future direction. Borland also wrote of the early phases – people needed time to trust one another, to feel free to discuss theory and practice openly and without fear of destructive criticism. Thus a Federal structure had been created; one enabling groups from each state to retreat and shore up their identity before venturing out again into the national sphere. Large groups can be very exposing.

Borland hoped that in time the safety of the federal model would eventually disappear. There were many ‘beginnings’, Borland continued: the first conference at Bowral in New South Wales in 1981 where people began to trust and talk theory and practice together was one of them. New work was beginning: to develop ethical guidelines particular to the practice of psychoanalytic psychotherapy –  differentiated from the base professions: social work, psychology and psychiatry where psychotherapy was but a small part of their concerns. And of course, he added,  work was beginning to relate psychoanalytic psychotherapy to the broader mental health system.  And the journal? It was a place for discussion and reflection; where the status quo could be questioned, new concepts explored and ideas thrashed out in print. Moreover it was an Australian born psychoanalytic journal… with its own cultural base.

Music Review: Arcko Symphonic Ensemble, 2 June 2013, Fitzroy Town Hall

10 Monday Jun 2013

Posted by in western australia

≈ Leave a comment

Two reasons for reblogging this: To introduce an interesting and well written blog/magazine reviewing contemporary arts in Australia. Secondly Nick Tolhurst’ thoughtful review of Arcko’s concert at the Fitzroy Town Hall about a week ago. I think I will go to the next one later this year.

Weering Review

Before beginning this review, be alerted to the next Arcko concert in the on the 19th and 20th October this year.  In line with Arcko’s mission of performing Australian works that have had very limited exposure, conductor Timothy Phillips is programming an all Australian program for string orchestra.  If the concert can be held in the Reading Room of the Fitzroy Town Hall it will be a knockout.  The acoustic of the Reading Room loves strings.  If you like string music, this is the place to hear it, especially with the top players Phiillips engages for his concerts

The recent Arcko concert was dedicated to Nigel Butterley AM, Arcko’s Honorary Patron and (I hope he doesn’t mind) one of Australia’s grandfathers of modern music.  We were fortunate to have Nigel Butterley at the concert to talk about each work as they were about to played.  A theme of…

View original post 886 more words

The History of Emotions

05 Wednesday Jun 2013

Posted by in History of Emotions, lectures, seminars

≈ 2 Comments

I happened across this lecture, ‘The Disappearance of Emotion? Violence, Affect, and the Post-Traumatic Subject’ to be given by Professor Ruth Leys at the University of Melbourne on Thursday 6 June 2013. It is free to the public and, indeed, more details can be found here. Briefly, Leys is examining the ‘latest twists’ in affect theory today. Her question is this:- Where Freud’s libido theory was central to twentieth century, will the twentyfirst be ‘the century of the “post-traumatic” subject, whose affective indifference and profound emotional disengagement from the world mark him or her as a victim of brain damage’?

Freud, his work and the development of psychoanalysis during the twentieth century, is under increasing and critical scrutiny by researchers in the Humanities and Cultural Studies field. The ARC Centre of Excellence in the History of Emotions, a conglomerate formed by the Universities of Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Western Australia focuses on the way people thought and felt in Europe from 1100 through to 1800 and from thence to the way these patterns found their expression and continued formation in Australia during the subsequent 200 years until the early twenty-first century. How psychoanalysis emerged both as a framework for interpretation of these phenomena AND as a method of investigation into the individual mind as well as the social/nation/group is certainly part, but not all of, the Centre’s focus. It is certainly one of the aims of this humble blog.

Past events include a lecture by Philosopher Prof Louis Charland  from the University of Ontario at the University of Western Australia on 26 June 2012. Cribbing from the Centre’s newsletter which is also here Professor Charland addressed ‘lack of passion in Western psychiatry’ and ‘the fundamental roles of psychiatry pioneers Theodule-Arman Ribot, Philippe Pinel, Sir Alexander Crichton and Jean-Etienne Esquirol in that belief of passion in the genesis and nature of mental illness’. Prof Charland argued that passion needs to be reinstated back into Western psychiatry by first looking at the past lessons of history. There is a link to the lecture itself in the newsletter.

What impresses me is the generativity of this Centre and the potential for interdisciplinary collaboration and development of thinking and theory. At the Australian History Association Conference last year a keynote session concerned research into people’s responses to disaster, namely the Australian bushfires. Investigation into adolescent disorders in the seventeenth century by Ursula Potter from the University of Sydney has also led to a partnership with the School of Psychology and research into Anorexia Nervosa at that University. And indeed historians and cultural theorists will be continuing to investigate the development of psychoanalysis and psychology and its practitioners during the twentieth century.

That said, as I peruse the material on the ARC links I wonder where the  people who have devloped a vast expertise in emotions and emotional expression, at least during the twentieth century and beyond, have gone. They seem to be underrepresented, if at all. Surely there is scope for developing conversation with, if not a critical examination of these arenas by the very professional groups concerned -whether within their particular frames of reference or indeed, in partnership with scholars from the Humanities streams. We will wait and see.

 

Dual Training: Professional and Personal Insights

01 Saturday Jun 2013

Posted by in western australia

≈ Leave a comment

Since this blog is about the intersection between psychoanalysis and history as well as the history of psychoanalysis in the region, Lowenberg’s contribution is a useful one.

UC-NCP IPC

A classic essay on the value of “dual” psychoanalytic and academic training by the eminent psychohistorian Peter Loewenberg—one of UCIPCs founding members and Professor Emeritus of History at UCLA.

Check it out!  Read the Entire Article Here

View original post