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Sutherland Trust Spring Lecture 2024: Prof. Candida Yates

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Sutherland Trust Spring Lecture 2024

DISAVOWAL, LYING AND THE MANIC DEFENCE IN POLITICAL CULTURE: THE CASE OF BORIS JOHNSON AND ‘PARTYGATE.’

Lecture given by Candida Yates

Wednesday 8th May @ 7pm (doors open 6:45pm)
Augustine United Church, 41 George IV Bridge, Edinburgh, EH1 1EL

A constant refrain of the late modern world is the difficulty of focusing, of taking time to process one’s thoughts and feelings. Beset by intersecting crises nationally and internationally, there is a defensive wish to look away as a means of overcoming feelings of helplessness that consciously and unconsciously threaten to overwhelm, both at individual and collective levels of experience. In a post-truth era, this pattern of denial and disavowal is present more widely in our engagement with the processes of mediatised political culture, where the boundary between knowing and not knowing is variously echoed in the behaviour, style, and rhetoric of politicians such as Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump or Boris Johnson.

In this talk I will draw on object relations psychoanalysis to discuss the affective relationship between the culture of lying in politics and the psychosocial processes associated with the manic defence, addressed in different ways by Freud (1900) Melanie Klein (1940), Donald Winnicott (1938) and more recently, Lynne Layton (2010).

At a time when lying has become common place in Western democracies, it is useful to examine when and why the public collude with the duplicity of their leaders and what needs to happen for a healthy sense of scepticism and doubt to emerge to enable change.

Candida Yates, Professor of Culture and Communication, Bournemouth University, is an interdisciplinary scholar and applies a psychosocial approach to culture, politics and society and has published widely in that field. She works with academics, clinicians, and cultural organisations to create new understandings of emotion and affect in the public sphere. She teaches on the Political Masters Programmes at BU and supervises students; she is a Co-Director of the BU Centre for the Study of Conflict, Emotion and Social Justice. She sits on the Executive Board of the UK Association for Psychosocial Studies and is a Founding Scholar of the British Psychoanalytic Council and is an Academic Associate of the Freud Museum, London. She is Joint-Editor of the Routledge book series: Psychoanalysis and Popular Culture, and is a Contributing Editor on the journals Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society, and The Journal of Psychosocial Studies.

For further information and to purchase tickets use the following link:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/826222934037?aff=oddtdtcreator

SPRING LECTURE 2023: Prof. Divine Charura

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In the beginning was relationship: remembering, repeating, and working  through the trauma and challenges of returning from COVID-19 complexes.

Thursday 11th May @ 7pm

The Royal College of Physicians, 11 Queen St, Edinburgh
Tickets £10, £5 concession. Book through Eventbrite. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/thesutherland-trust-spring-lecture-2023-by-professor-divine-charura-tickets-622517365197

At present, in our diverse communities we are dealing with many challenges in relation to returning  and re-engaging with each other, following a few years’ impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. These  challenges for example relate to the unprecedented demand for hybrid encounters in different  contexts, the need for psychological support, realities of many people experiencing austerity,  trauma, and social disintegration. Additional challenges we are facing include increasing inequality,  working with complex trauma narratives and ecological collapse. What are our reflections and  experiences of these challenges?  What is the impact and benefit of authentic in-person relational  encounters?  How can we personally and collectively thrive in these challenging times? 

This lecture will offer reflections on these complex matters and furthermore draw on  psychoanalytic/psychodynamic theoretical perspectives. The provocation that is offered to stimulate  dialogue is that: Currently there are enactments of collective defences throughout diverse societies  which are contributing to some of the manifesting resistance to engaging in authentic encounter.  Professor  Divine  Charura  argues  that  these  manifestations  could  be  hypothesised  as  an  exemplification of a compulsion to repeat some of the trauma and social disintegration that emerged  through the COVID-19 Pandemic.  Citing some specific examples from his own experiences, of  being hospitalised with COVID-19, and some evidence from his research and other works, Professor  Divine  Charura’s  keynote presentation  will offer  perspectives  on  how  through psychotherapy,  or  other  authentic  relationships  we  can  work  through  trauma,  challenges  and  continue  to  adapt,  (re)build as well as transform personally and collectively. This keynote aims to stimulate dialogue on  how psychotherapy and other diverse social relationships can enable us to be more outward looking,  and to maintain hope in these times of crises and for whatever the future holds.

About the Speaker

Dr. Divine Charura is a full Professor of Counselling Psychology and the Director for the Doctor of  Counselling  Psychology  Programme  at  York  St  John  University  (England).  He  is  a  Chartered  Psychologist, and Counselling Psychologist with the British Psychological Society. He is registered  as a Practitioner Psychologist with the Health and Care Professions Council in England. Divine is  an Honorary Fellow of the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy and an Adult Psychotherapist. 

Divine’s research interests are in psychological traumatology and wellbeing across the lifespan. As  a practitioner psychologist his psychotherapeutic interests are on the tansformatory power of the  therapeutic relationship when working with, loss, diversity, psychological distress, trauma, love, and  relationships.  Divine  has  a  passion  for  promoting  the  use  and  value  of  psychoanalytic/psychodynamic theoretical perspectives and psychotherapy concepts in all walks of  life, coaching, education, business, social care and beyond. 

Divine has co-authored and edited numerous books in counselling, psychology, and psychotherapy.  He has co-edited Love and Therapy with Stephen Paul, and with Colin Lago he has co-edited The  Person-Centred  Counselling  and  Psychotherapy  Handbook:  Origins,  Developments  and  Current Applications and Black  Identities  +  White  therapies:  Race respect and diversity. His forthcoming co-edited book with Dr Laura Winter is entitled The  Handbook of Social Justice Theory and Practice in the Psychological Therapies:  Power, Politics  and Change. 

COVID-19 AND THE TRUST’S ACTIVITIES

Because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the Sutherland Trust has postponed its biannual lectures until 2021, when we will return with an exciting programme of in-person, face-to-face events.

Our annual Assistive Awards scheme continues unaffected. Awardees from the May 2020 round will be supported, and we will open a new competition in 2021.

We look forward to meeting again in 2021!