The Culture-Breast in Psychoanalysis: Cultural Experiences and the Clinic

Description

We are fed at the breast of culture, not wholly but to differing degrees. What happens to us emotionally and unconsciously when we engage in cultural experiences, for example, when we watch a film, listen to a piece of music, read a novel, or interact with a piece of art? How might the psychological workings of these cultural encounters relate to our earliest feeding experiences as babies? What might our attachments to particular cultural objects tell us about ourselves? How might a new clinical concept, ‘the culture-breast’, help us to reflect on the transference-countertransference experience in the consulting room?

This clinical seminar focuses on a discussion of psychoanalytic psychotherapist and lecturer Dr Noreen Giffney’s new book, ‘The Culture-Breast in Psychoanalysis: Cultural Experiences and the Clinic’ (Routledge 2021). The book introduces ‘the culture-breast’, a new clinical concept, to explore the central importance played by cultural objects (film, art, literature, music) in the psychical lives of patients and psychoanalytic clinical practitioners inside and outside the consulting room.

The seminar begins with a conversation between Noreen and Ann Murphy (psychoanalytic psychotherapist, clinical psychologist and visual artist) about Noreen’s book. The second half of the seminar will include an open discussion with attendees about the implications of ‘the culture-breast’ for psychoanalytic clinical training and practice.

Book tickets