Planning for Melbourne’s Freud Conference in May 2015 is well underway. An annual event, the conference has a long tradition of inviting international guest speakers to present their work and meet colleagues from the fields of clinical and applied psychoanalysis. The conference is organized by representatives of the Australian Psychoanalytic Society, the Victorian Association of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapists, the Australian Association of Group Psychotherapists. Douglas Kirsner from Deakin University and one of the founders of the conference has provided a detailed history here

During the last twelve months the Freud Conference committee have developed a Blog, another WordPress Blog : The Freud Conference which provides details of speakers and interests but also publishes material associated with the speakers and their interests. It’s worth going over and having a look.

The theme for next year’s conference is not clear but two speakers, Dr Marianne Leuzinger-Bohleber and Dr Werner Bohleber from the German Psychoanalytical Association will be coming. Both are regarded as two of the world’s foremost clinicians, thinkers, researchers and authors on the theory and treatment of people who have suffered catastrophic trauma. Their work perspectives from the fields of psychoanalysis, history, philosophy and the neurosciences.

Dr Marianne Leuzinger- Bohleber is a training analyst, former chair of the Research Subcommittees for Conceptual Research and also a member of the Swiss Psychoanalytical Society. She is vice chair of the Research Board of the International Psychoanalytical Association, Full Professor of Psychoanalysis at the University of Kassel and head Director of the Sigmund Freud Institute Frankfurt/Maine. Her main research fields include epistemology and methods of clinical and empirical research in psychoanalysis, interdisciplinary discourse with embodied cognitive science, educational sciences and modern German literature.

Dr Werner Bohleber is a training analyst in private practice in Frankfurt and Main, Germany and a former President of the German Psychoanalytical Association (DPV). His main area of interest is about trauma in both the individual and wider social sense, terrorism, right wing extremism ans anti-Semitism and the consequences of a particular history with the Nazi era of German National Socialism. Interested in the welfare of children, he studied adolescence, identity and the transgenerational consequences of World War II on children’s development. In 2007 Werner won the Sigourney Award which recognizes distinguished contributions to the field of psychoanalysis.

As usual there will be plenty of time for discussion and conversation. It is one of those rare events, these days, which eschew the ubiquitous parallel sessions and twenty minute papers. Anyone who is interested in is welcome to attend.The conference will be held on Saturday 16 May 2015 at The Melbourne Brain Centre in Melbourne’s Royal Parade, Parkville, within walking distance of the cafes and boutiques of Lygon Street and a short tram ride from the city centre.

For further enquiries contact Christine Hill, christine.hill@monash.edu; mobile: 0411 556 205.