Freud’s Studies on Hysteria - a reading of female hysteria and the invention of psychoanalysis
Last Saturday of the month 11.00am-1.00pm

Lacan’s Seminar XVII - The Other Side of Psychoanalysis 1969 - 1970
Last Saturday of the month 3.00-5.00pm

These Seminars involve a close reading of foundational texts of Freud and Lacan with discussion of related clinical and theoretical topics.

Convenor: Linda Clifton,
9509 9396

SEMINARS

Psychoanalysis, philosophy & theology
First Saturday of the month 3.30pm-5.00pm

An appraisal of certain fundamental concepts in psychoanalysis and the way in which they are informed by and inform recurring questions in philosophy and theology across the realms of metaphysics, ontology, logic and ethics. - Detailed outline available on request.

Convenor: David Pereira, 9690 3515

Psychoanalysis and the Child
First Tuesday of each month 8-9.30pm, reconvening Tuesday 7nd February 2012

When Oedipus confronts the sphinx and solves her riddle, he responds that the being who has at times two feet, at others three, at others four, is Man as an adult, an old man and as an infant. But this attempt to answer the enigma of sexuality with the proposition of the three ages of life poses a difficulty: we cannot speak of the ‘child’ in reference to psychoanalysis without opening the question of how we might conceive of the very notion of childhood and in what manner it might or might not constitute a theoretical category for psychoanalysis.

We can see, moreover, in the history of child psychoanalysis, a division between the two sides of Oedipus’ struggle: on the one hand, a confrontation with the enigma of sexuality for the child and an attempt to give it meaning; on the other, a turning away from this riddle through a recourse to a developmental insistence on ages and stages. We might pose a question of what articulation is possible between these two sides, that of the riddle and of its solution. That is, we might attempt to keep the enigma alive, but without throwing out the child with the bathwater. For to speak about a field of child psychoanalysis is to put forward that the child might be able to be structurally defined in relation to the enigma of sex. The writings of both Freud and Lacan, as well as those of other analysts will be taken up in order to discern what in psychoanalysis has shaped the path of the conceptualisation of childhood and the infantile factor of sexuality.

In 2012 we will conclude our examination of the ‘wild child’ and the effects of his or her isolation from language. By examining this question with the perspective of Robinson Crusoe, as well as Michel Tournier’s reworking of Defoe’s novel, we can take up this question from a structural angle, rather than a developmental one. We will continue the discussion of how the child is attributed the status of a speaking being from psychoanalysis by reading Freud’s case of little Hans and investigating the way Lacan revisits this case in his seminar The Object Relation. There he indicates how Hans endeavours to map his existence onto the topography of Vienna itself. In this manner the child endeavours to structure the Oedipus myth through language, in order to find his way through uncharted territory. We will further elaborate the function of myth for the child in this mapping exercise through a reading of Lévi-Strauss.

Method and Technique in Clinical Practice
First Saturday of the month 11.30am -1.00pm.

With reference to a functional differentiation between the notions of method and technique this seminar will examine and discuss certain impasses in clinical practice. Reference will be made to clinical material and to selected clinical texts.

Convenors:
Linda Clifton, 9509 9396
David Pereira, 9690 3515