HUMAN, CLIMATE, ENVIRONMENT

ABOUT THE CONFERENCE

The Hanna Segal Institute for Psychoanalytic Studies

Conference

HUMAN, CLIMATE, ENVIRONMENT

Warsaw, Sat, 3 June 2023

The darkest times for us are not the times without light.

They are the times without will.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s New Year message for 2023

Dear Colleagues, Dear Participants of the Conference

Above, I quoted the words of the President of Ukraine, with which Sally Weintrobe will begin her paper “Reflections on the rising crazy“ at this year’s Conference. I believe that these words are a fitting motto for the entire conference. Sally has been speaking tirelessly about our approach to the climate crisis for years. She asks questions about our role in this crisis, how do we deal with overwhelming feelings, and what do we need to support mindful thinking and stop our destructiveness? In her paper, she will explore two forms of impasse. The first is driven by a pathological organization of a psychopathic kind, powered by narcissistic entitlement. It actively blocks movement towards accepting real limits. The second kind of impasse is the tragic consequence of the first kind. As damage mounts, working through guilt, grieving and processing trauma becomes increasingly hard and often blocked. The ‘rising crazy’ refers to the tragic effects of both kinds of impasse on the mind and in the world.

David Bell in his paper “Psychoanalytic reflections on the conditions of the possibility of human destructiveness” addresses the topic of wars. He refers to Kant’s conditions of possibility when analyzing armed conflicts, which, according to Bell, are the basis for the detonation of such extremes of destruction. Starting with key papers of Freud that address this malaise of our “civilization”, he goes on to consider the contributions from the Kleinian school (particularly Money-Kyrle and Segal). He ends his paper with the quote from Arendt: “When faced with the full horror of the camps and the gulags, we cannot say ‘God be thanked I am not like that’. Rather, in fear and trembling…(we) realise of what man is capable – and this is indeed the precondition for modern political thinking. Such persons will not serve well as the functionaries of vengeance. This, however, is certain: Upon them, and only upon them, who are filled with genuine fear of the inescapable guilt of the human race, can there be any reliance when it comes to fighting fearlessly, uncompromisingly, everywhere against the incalculable evil that men are capable of bringing about.”

Finally, in his paper, “Complacency: a retreat into numbness” Julian Lousada will describe the mechanism of abandonment, which consists in falling into complacency – a tricky, seductive and mind-numbing mechanism, causing invisible and slowly progressing destructive changes in individuals and groups.

I hope we will meet on June 3 in Warsaw and that you will consider that it was worth it.

Chair of the Scientific Committee of the Conference

Agnieszka Hanbowska

PROGRAMME

The Conference languages: Polish and English, the conference will be translated simultaneously,

9:00 - 10:00 Registration
10.00 - 10.10 Conference Opening and Welcome Note by Małgorzata Bajor-Wocial, the ISPHS President
10.10 – 11:40 Sally Weintrobe (British Psychoanalytic Society) Reflections on the rising crazy Chair: Rafał Pniewski
11:40 - 12:10 Coffee break
12.:10 - 14.00 David Bell (British Psychoanalytic Society) Psychoanalytic Reflections on the Conditions of Possibility of Human Destructiveness Chair: Wojtek Hańbowski
14.00 - 15.15 Lunch break (vegetarian menu)
15:15 - 16:45 Julian Lousada (British Psychoanalytic Association) Complacency: a retreat into numbness Chair: Katarzyna Niemczuk
16:45 – 17:15 Panel discussion Sally Weintrobe, David Bell, Julian Lousada Chair: Rafał Pniewski
17.15 Closing of the Conference

SPEAKERS

Julian Lousada

Julian Lousada is a Psychoanalyst working now in private practice. Julian was originally a psychiatric social worker : then taught social work and social policy at a number of universities. On completion of his initial Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy training Julian was appointed as a senior member of staff to the Adult Department of the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. Where he became its Clinical Director for 9 years prior to his retirement. He became a member of the IPA in 2009 Julian is an Organizational Consultant and has staffed and directed Group Relations Conferences both nationally and internationally. He has coauthored 2 books “The Politics of Mental Health” ( 1985) and in 2005 with Andrew Cooper “Borderline Welfare: Feeling and the fear of feeling in Modern Welfare. He has contributed to other publications and presented at conferences both nationally and internationally.

Sally Weintrobe

Sally Weintrobe is a psychoanalyst who writes and talks on how to understand what underlies our widespread disavowal of climate change. She edited and contributed to Engaging with Climate Change: Psychoanalytic and Interdisciplinary Perspectives (2012). Her current work is on the culture of uncare, a culture that she argues works to sever our felt caring links with the environment and with each other. She is a Fellow of the British Psychoanalytical Society (BPAS), a Chartered Clinical Psychologist (BPS) and a founding member of the Climate Psychology Alliance (CPA). She works in clinical practice as a psychoanalyst. She also writes and talks on the psychology of climate change. She is consulted by different people and groups, and have given talks on climate change at venues in the UK and abroad. Her new book “Psychological Roots of the Climate Crisis” was published in 2021.

Dr David Bell

Dr David Bell is a training analyst and supervisor of the British Psychoanalytical Society who served as its president from 2010 to 2012. Bell was a consultant psychiatrist in the Adult Department at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, where he was director of postgraduate training for many years and leads a specialist service (the Fitzjohn’s Unit) for the treatment of patients with enduring and complex problems. He was the 2012–2014 Professorial Fellow at Birkbeck College and is currently an honorary senior lecturer at University College London. He lectures regularly on political issues including the historical development of psychoanalytic concepts (Freud, Klein, and Bion) and the psychoanalytic understanding of severe disorder. For his entire professional career, he has deeply involved himself in interdisciplinary studies (the relation between psychoanalysis and literature, philosophy and socio-political theory). He has written numerous papers and chapters in books/monographs, edited two books, “Reason and Passion” and Psychoanalysis and Culture”, and written one small book, “Paranoia”. He is also one of the UK’s leading psychiatric experts in asylum and immigration.

ORGANISERS

The Hanna Segal Institute for Psychoanalytic Studies Conference

Scientific Committee:

Organizing Committee:

VENUE

FEE

The conference fee:

until April 30, 2023 – 95 EUR,

from May 1, 2023 – 110 EUR

The conference fee includes: participation in the conference, simultaneous translation (Polish/English, English/Polish), digital materials, catering.

Registration for the conference closes on June 1, 2023

Bank details for payments in EUR :

Beneficiary: Instytut Studiow Psychoanalitycznych im. Hanny Segal

IBAN: PL 22 1020 4027 0000 1802 1560 3062

SWIFT BIC (Swift): BPKOPLPW

Bank name: PKO BP

Payment Reference:: Conference, First and Last Name

REGISTRATION

Registration for the conference HUMAN – CLIMATE – ENVIRONMENT, Warsaw, June 3, 2023

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HUMAN, CLIMATE, ENVIRONMENT

The Hanna Segal Institute for Psychoanalytic Studies Conference

Warsaw, 3 June 2023

ABOUT THE CONFERENCE

PROGRAMME