Three lectures make up this autumn 2024 series:

Lecture 1: Exploring DID: Attachment perspective on survival, destruction and healing

3 October 2024

This lecture will be recorded.

Lecturer: Dr. Adah Sachs

Dissociative Identity Disorder, the most severe of the dissociative disorders, is linked with severe and prolonged trauma which started in early childhood (see DSM-5). In most cases, this means that a child was subjected to abuse by their attachment figures – the people or person on whom the child’s survival depends. This talk will explore in detail the process by which this type of childhood trauma may lead to the development of DID. We will follow the steps by which attachment, a survival instinct, may be corrupted into its opposite: a specific type of disorganized attachment which act as a Trojan horse for harm and destruction. We will then discuss the use of attachment principles in the psychotherapeutic treatment of people with DID.

Please note, some of the clinical material may be distressing.

Lecture 2: Compassion Focused Therapy for those who have been hurt and harmed by others: An exploration of the motivation of compassion as the antidote to shame states and self-loathing in clients who have suffered interpersonal trauma.

7 November 2024

This lecture will be recorded.

Lecturer: Dr Deborah Lee

Clients who have repeatedly experienced, hurt and harm at the hands of others, often face many challenges their therapy journey. As well as distressing symptoms of PTSD, they may struggle with profound self-loathing, lack of trust, pervasive sense of danger, interpersonal difficulties, affect regulation and altered states of consciousness. The emotional context of their lives is often overwhelmed by intense shame states which are experienced both intra and interpersonally. This talk explores an evolutionary understanding of shame from social mentality theory (Gilbert, 2005). This roots our understanding of trauma and it’s impact on human development in the biopsychosocial science of human nature and suffering.

The talk will explore our understanding of compassion as a motivation, an antidote to shame states, as it fosters a physiological state of safeness as well as orientating the mind to be care giving as opposed to self-loathing (Gilbert, 2009). We will discuss how we can foster clients’ basic motivation to be compassionate to enhance compassion for self and others. We will also discuss how we use compassionate practices such as breath work, mediation and imagery to develop an embodied sense of safeness (Lee, 2022, Lee & James, 2013). We will also explore how we can then use compassionate states of mind to de-shame trauma memories, promote grief process and facilitate emotional processing of trauma experiences. The talk will present some preliminary quantitative and qualitative data related to service research in this approach.

Lecture 3: Gender Without Identity: A Psychoanalysis for Trans Flourishing

5 December 2024

This lecture will be recorded.

Lecturers: Dr. Avgi Saketopoulou and Dr. Ann Pellegrini

In this presentation, Saketopoulou and Pellegrini offer an unexpected and psychoanalytical argument for queer and trans life and flourishing. Challenging a claim frequently embraced by rights activists and many members of the LGBTQ+ community that gender identity is innate and immutable, Saketopoulou and Pellegrini instead posit that gender is something all subjects acquire. Trauma, they provocatively propose, sometimes has a share in that acquisition. In their way of thinking, lived trauma as well as structural and intergenerationally transmitted traumatic debris may become a resource for transness and queerness. Such a suggestion importantly counters analytic accounts that see trauma as disrupting or “warping” some putatively “normal” gender. Rooted in the work of French psychoanalyst Jean Laplanche, in queer and trans of colour critique, and in the authors’ extensive clinical experience with queer and trans people, this talk presents a radical theory of gender formation and its ongoing mutations.

Drs. Saketopoulou and Pellegrini are the co-recipients of the first Tiresias Award (2021), given by the Sexual and Gender Diversity Studies Committee of the International Psychoanalytical Association, for their essay, “A feminine boy: normative investments and reparative fantasy at the intersections of gender, race, and religion.” That essay became the basis for their 2023 book Gender Without Identity (UIT Press).

Lectures will take place at the following times:

*To enable access to the widest possible audience these lectures are planned to be delivered live, but remotely, as webinars. Where we are able, a recording will be made available about one week after the live lecture to all booked delegates although we encourage live attendance wherever possible. Please see the details above to see if this lecture will be recorded and available after the live event.

These lectures will be delivered remotely using Zoom. You will need a device with a suitably fast internet connection. Although mobile devices and tablets can be used, we recommend the use of laptop or desktop PC for the best experience. Some devices provided by employers may have restrictions in place. Please use this test link (https://zoom.us/test) to check your set up before booking.

You will be sent the necessary login link about a week before the course start date. Should you have any concerns about the accessibility of remote delivery please contact us at CPDEvents@tavi-port.ac.uk to discuss how we can best help you.

Save £15 with a lecture series bundle

Lectures can be booked individually at £30 each or as a cost-saving bundle comprising the three autumn 2024 series lectures at £75 – a saving of £15 compared to booking the lectures individually.