Locked Up: ‘Patients’ and their Gaolers. 4. Alice, Princess Andrew of Greece. Hugo Vickers conducts Inner Circle Seminar 165 (3 July 2011)

Alice, Princess Andrew of Greece

Locked Up: ‘Patients’ and their Gaolers

4. Alice, Princess Andrew
(1885–1969)
Mother-in-law of The Queen

Hugo Vickers
conducts
Inner Circle Seminar No. 165
introduced by
Anthony Stadlen
Sunday 3 July 2011
10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Alice, Princess Andrew of Greece (25 February 1885 – 5 December 1969) was mother of The Duke of Edinburgh and mother-in-law of The Queen.

Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, in 1930 advised the ‘treatment’ of Alice’s ‘schizophrenic paranoia’ and ‘neurotic pre-psychotic libidinous condition’ in a psychoanalytic ‘sanatorium’ at Tegel, Germany, by ‘an exposure of the gonads to X-rays in order to accelerate the menopause’. This was done.

Ludwig Binswanger, the founder of existential psychiatry, then took over Alice’s ‘treatment’, in his own ‘sanatorium’ at Kreuzlingen, Switzerland, where she had been taken by force and deception. His ‘treatment’ included confiscating her letters to the press, which were an embarrassment to her family. Her attempts to escape were unsuccessful.

Hugo Vickers, distinguished author of Alice, Princess Andrew of Greece (2000) and of many other books, was granted by The Duke of Edinburgh unrestricted access to archival data on his mother. Hugo Vickers examines the intelligibility of the familial and social interactions by which The Queen’s mother-in-law came to be ‘treated’, with force and fraud, as a ‘schizophrenic’. Your contribution to the discussion will be welcome.

Venue: Durrants Hotel, 26–32 George Street, Marylebone, London W1H 5BJ (http://www.durrantshotel.co.uk/)
Cost: Students £108, others £135, some bursaries; mineral water, coffee, tea, biscuits, liquorice allsorts included

Apply to: Anthony Stadlen, ‘Oakleigh’, 2A Alexandra Avenue, London N22 7XE
Tel: +44 (0) 20 8888 6857 E-mail: stadlen@aol.com
For further information on seminars, visit: http://anthonystadlen.blogspot.com/

The Inner Circle Seminars were founded by Anthony Stadlen in 1996 as an ethical, existential, phenomenological search for truth in psychotherapy. They have been kindly described by Thomas Szasz as ‘Institute for Advanced Studies in the Moral Foundations of Human Decency and Helpfulness’. But they are independent of all institutes, schools and colleges.