Existential Pioneers 10. Emmanuel Lévinas. Totality and Infinity 50 Years On. Inner Circle Seminar 171 (11 December 2011)




Emmanuel Lévinas

Existential Pioneers

10. Emmanuel Lévinas

Totality and Infinity (1961)

50 Years On

Inner Circle Seminar No. 171

conducted by

Anthony Stadlen

Sunday 11 December 2011

10 a.m. to 5 p.m.



Emmanuel Lévinas (30 December 1905 – 25 December 1995) was a highly original 20th-century philosopher. He introduced Husserl and Heidegger to France, and revered Heidegger’s Being and Time (1927), but asked how Heidegger’s philosophy had in 1933 allowed him to embrace National Socialism. Lévinas’s extraordinary book Totality and Infinity (1961) was his answer. He urged that more primordial than ‘Being’ was the Face of the Other. The Face means: ‘Love your neighbour’, ‘Love the stranger’, ‘Care for the widow and the orphan’, ‘Do not murder’. Philosophy, said Lévinas, should tremble before the infinity of the Other, not subsume him or her in the totality of the Same. How does Lévinas’s thinking differ from that of Freud, Buber, Heidegger, von Hildebrand, Stein, Sartre and others? What is its relevance to the everyday practice of psychotherapy? We devoted Inner Circle Seminar No. 97 (22 January 2006) to Lévinas’s work as a whole, but today we shall focus on Totality and Infinity, 50 years on. 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: Psychotherapy trainees £50, others £135; some bursaries; mineral water and liquorice allsorts included; payable in advance; no refunds unless seminar cancelled

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.

Locked Up: ‘Patients’ and their Gaolers. 5. Linda Sibelius. Gitta Henning conducts Inner CLinda Sibeliusircle 170 (27 November 2011)

Linda Sibelius

Locked Up: ‘Patients’ and their Gaolers

5. Linda Sibelius
(1863-1932)
Sister of Jean Sibelius

Gitta Henning
conducts
Inner Circle Seminar No. 170
introduced by
Anthony Stadlen
27 November 2011
10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

This seminar is the fifth in the subseries Locked Up: ‘Patients’ and their Gaolers. Those who have attended the first four seminars in the subseries have heard astonishing and shocking accounts, by Vladimir Bukovsky and Kate Millett in person, and by world experts on Judge Daniel Paul Schreber and Princess Alice (the Duke of Edinburgh’s mother), of how these four outstanding and spirited people who had committed no crimes were incarcerated for years in psychiatric ‘hospitals’ in the twentieth century. This Locked Up subseries will continue as long as the Inner Circle Seminars continue and innocent people are still being locked up in such ‘hospitals’ around the world in the twenty-first century. There is no lack of prominent subjects for such seminars...

Today’s seminar is devoted, on her 148th birthday, to Linda Sibelius (27 November 1863 – 15 May 1932), the older sister of the great Finnish composer Jean Sibelius (1865–1957) and of Finland’s leading professor of psychiatry Christian Sibelius (1869–1922). Sibelius’s biographer Robert Layton writes that she was ‘committed to an asylum’. Engaged in some kind of religious quest, she spent her last thirty years in psychiatric hospitals. Her brothers continued to have apparently warm relationships with her, but Jean Sibelius wrote in one diary entry that it was depressing to see ‘the madwoman’. We are now in the centenary year of Sibelius’s profoundly searching work, the Fourth Symphony (1911), which he called a ‘psychological’ symphony. He wrote in his diary: ‘It calls for much courage to look life straight in the eyes!’ He later said to Walter Legge that to have continued composing in that direction would have led to ‘madness’. What was the relationship between his quest and his sister’s? Gitta Henning, at the prompting of Anthony Stadlen, and encouraged by the Sibelius family, has conducted extensive research on Linda Sibelius in Finnish archives especially for today’s Inner Circle Seminar. There is little about Linda Sibelius in the Sibelius biographies. They do not even give the date of her death, which was discovered by Mrs Henning. Why was the sister of one of the greatest twentieth-century composers a ‘mental patient’ for the last three decades of her life? We shall, as in all the seminars of the subseries Locked Up: ‘Patients’ and their Gaolers, examine the interpersonal and social events that led to her decades-long ‘confinement’.

Gitta Henning is, in the view of Sibelius experts, the best possible guide to these questions. She worked as assistant to Erik Tawaststjerna on his monumental five-volume biography of Sibelius in the 1960s, and worked for thirty years on bringing out the Swedish and Finnish editions. She has deep knowledge of the Sibelius archives, and is often called upon by Finnish and foreign scholars to help with their research. We are honoured that she has undertaken this research on Linda Sibelius and will reveal her findings for the first time at our Inner Circle Seminar today.

Venue: Durrants Hotel, 26–32 George Street, Marylebone, London W1H 5BJ (http://www.durrantshotel.co.uk/)
Cost: Psychotherapy trainees, music students, and members of the UK Sibelius Society £50, others £135, some bursaries; mineral water and liquorice allsorts included; payable in advance; no refunds unless seminar cancelled

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.

Zeeman conducts: Mathematics & Human Action. Inner Circle Seminar 169 (6 November 2011)

Professor Sir Christopher Zeeman FRS
Portrait by Peter Edwards 2007

Mathematics and Human Action


‘Reducing the arbitrariness of the metaphor’ in the human sciences

Professor Sir Christopher Zeeman FRS
conducts
Inner Circle Seminar No. 169
introduced by
Anthony Stadlen
Sunday 6 November 2011
10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Professor Sir Christopher Zeeman FRS is one of the world’s greatest mathematicians. He spun knots in 4 dimensions, unknotted spheres in 5 dimensions, proved the Poincaré Conjecture in 5 dimensions, and derived special relativity from causality. He also applied René Thom’s catastrophe theory to human activities: ideologies, committee behaviour, economics, drama, and psychotherapy of ‘anorexia nervosa’. Today, he will show how this creative use of mathematics to clarify the ‘human sciences’, including psychotherapy, ‘reduces the arbitrariness of the metaphor’ (Thom), while the pseudo-scientific use of mathematics obscures, mystifies, and compounds arbitrariness. Lacanian analysts will have the opportunity to hear this great topologist’s evaluation of the applications of topology by Lacan. Sir Christopher is renowned as a great teacher, who explains deep mathematical concepts simply to those who thought they would never understand them. Your contribution to the dialogue will be welcome.

Venue: Durrants Hotel, 26–32 George Street, Marylebone, London W1H 5BJ (http://www.durrantshotel.co.uk/)
Cost: Psychotherapy trainees and mathematics students £50, others £135, some bursaries; mineral water and liquorice allsorts included; payable in advance; no refunds unless seminar cancelled
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.

Existential Pioneers. 9. Salvador Minuchin. 90th-birthday seminar: Family Kaleidoscope. Inner Circle Seminar 168 (16 October 2011)

 



Salvador Minuchin 2011

Existential Pioneers

9. Salvador Minuchin

90th-Birthday Seminar

Family Kaleidoscope

Anthony Stadlen

conducts

Inner Circle Seminar No. 168

Sunday 16 October 2011

10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Salvador Minuchin was born 90 years ago, on 13 October 1921. He is one of the most respected practitioners and teachers of family research and family therapy. He is author or co-author of the books Families of the Slums (1967), Families and Family Therapy (1974), Family Therapy Techniques (1981), Family Kaleidoscope (1984), and Mastering Family Therapy (1996). Minuchin writes of the family as an ‘organism’, of ‘family pathology’, and of ‘pathologically enmeshed’ families. But his use of these terms is existential: metaphorical, not pseudo-medical. His practice with, and thinking on, families is highly original, and existential to the core. In today’s seminar we shall study some of his writings and watch his work with families in the films Inviting the Family Dance and Beyond Technique. (Unfortunately, although he is still teaching, his health does not permit him to fly from Florida to conduct the seminar himself.) 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: Psychotherapy and family therapy trainees £50, others £135, some bursaries; mineral water and liquorice allsorts included; payable in advance; no refunds unless seminar cancelled
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.

Existential Pioneers. 8. Edith Stein. ‘The Problem of Empathy’. Mette Lebech conducts Inner Circle Seminar 167 (9 October 2011)




Edith Stein

Existential Pioneers

(‘May you live to 120!’)
8. Edith Stein
(Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross)
(1891-1942)
On the Problem of Empathy (1917)

Mette Lebech
conducts
Inner Circle Seminar No. 167
introduced by
Anthony Stadlen
Sunday 9 October 2011
10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Edith Stein, phenomenological philosopher, was born 120 years ago this week on 12 October 1891. In today’s seminar, we discuss her thesis, On the Problem of Empathy (1917). There are few more important problems for those who dare to call themselves psychotherapists. Our work purports to be ‘attending’ (therapy) to the ‘soul’ (psyche), but how can we do this? How can we help anyone reflect on his or her relationships if we have no idea how one person relates to another? The basis of a personal relationship, and in particular of a so-called ‘therapeutic’ relationship, is often said to be ‘empathy’. But what is ‘empathy’? Heidegger denounced it as a degenerate form of ‘being-with’ in which one isolated encapsulated ‘subject’ tries to ‘feel into’ and work out what is going on ‘in’ another isolated encapsulated ‘subject’: one black box decoding and making inferences about signals emitted by another. Heidegger and Stein were both brilliant assistants of Husserl. Heidegger’s critique of ‘empathy’ was surely aimed at Stein’s thesis. Was he right? Is she merely a footnote in the history of twentieth-century philosophy? Is she interesting primarily because it is unusual for a philosopher to be a woman, not to mention a Jew who became a Christian and a Discalced Carmelite nun, who was murdered in Auschwitz, and canonised by Pope John Paul II as Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross? Or is she one of the great phenomenologists, whose thinking differs subtly from that of Buber, Scheler, von Hildebrand, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Levinas, and whose thesis on ‘empathy’ presents a serious challenge to Heidegger’s, of which psychotherapists, and all concerned with how human beings relate to one another, should be aware?

Dr Alice von Hildebrand, widow of the great philosopher Dietrich von Hildebrand, sent a message for this seminar (email, 4 October 2011):

‘Just a line from Psalm 144 [145 in the Hebrew Bible (AS)] which I love especially:

God is close to all those who invoke him, those who invoke him in truth.

The very word ‘truth’ should make our hearts beat faster. Both DVH and Edith Stein were great lovers of truth.’

Dr Mette Lebech, Lecturer in Philosophy at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth, and President of the Edith Stein Circle (the International Association for the Study of the Philosophy of Edith Stein), is an ideal guide for our discussion of these questions.

Venue: Durrants Hotel, 26–32 George Street, Marylebone, London W1H 5BJ (http://www.durrantshotel.co.uk/)

Cost: Psychotherapy trainees and philosophy students £50, others £135, some bursaries; mineral water and liquorice allsorts included; morning and afternoon coffee, tea, biscuits (optional) £9 
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.

Existential Pioneers. 7. Fred Sander. Inner Circle Seminar 166 (7 August 2011)



Fred Sander

Existential Pioneers

7. Fred Sander

Created in Our Own Images.com

Fred Sander
conducts
Inner Circle Seminar No. 166
introduced by 
Anthony Stadlen
Sunday 7 August 2011
10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Fred Sander (born 6 January 1937) is a psychoanalyst and family therapist practising in New York. In his book Individual and Family Therapy: Towards an Integration (1979), he gave an existential analysis of plays by T. S. Eliot and Edward Albee, drawing on insights from research on family interaction and family therapy. In his new book, Created in Our Own Images.com (2010), starting from the Pygmalion myth, as retold in W. S. Gilbert’s play Pygmalion and Galatea (1871), Fred Sander and other authors explore how human beings seek to clone others, literally and metaphorically, biologically and existentially, in their own images. The authors warn that this aspiration, of individuals rather than governments, may well bring about a ‘Brave New World’ more chilling than even Aldous Huxley imagined. Today, Fred Sander illustrates this thesis with examples from his long experience as family therapist and psychoanalyst and invites you to participate in a discussion of the ethical and existential implications.

Venue: 'Oakleigh', 2A Alexandra Avenue, London N22 7XE

Cost: Students £108, others £135, some bursaries; mineral water, coffee, tea, biscuits 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.

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.

Locked Up. 3. Schreber/Freud Centenary Symposium. Han Israëls, Zvi Lothane, Morton Schatzman conduct Inner Circle Seminar 164 (5 June 2011)

                                          

Daniel Paul Schreber

Locked Up: ‘Patients’ and their Gaolers



3. Schreber and Freud:

A Hundred Years of a Double Legacy

A Symposium for the Centenary of

Freud’s 1911 Case Study of

Daniel Paul Schreber’s

Memoirs of my Nervous Illness (1903)

Han Israëls

Zvi Lothane

Morton Schatzman

conduct

Inner Circle Seminar No. 164

introduced by

Anthony Stadlen

Sunday 5 June 2011

10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Judge Daniel Paul Schreber (25 July 1842 – 14 April 1911) is the most famous of all locked-up ‘psychotics’ and ‘mental patients’. This seminar marks the centenary of both Schreber’s death and Sigmund Freud’s 1911 case study of Schreber, the first of many reinterpretations of Schreber’s Memoirs of my Nervous Illness (1903). Schreber’s Memoirs, Freud’s case study, and other writings on Schreber, are said to be ‘paradigms’. But of what are they paradigms? Is the very concept of ‘paradigm’ in the ‘human sciences’ misleading? In today’s seminar, the world’s three leading Schreber experts discuss these questions, as well as why Schreber was locked up.

Han Israëls is author of Schreber: Father and Son (1989 [1980]).
Zvi Lothane is author of In Defence of Schreber: Soul Murder and Psychiatry (1992).
Morton Schatzman is author of Soul Murder: Persecution in the Family (1973).

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 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.

Locked Up: ‘Patients’ and their Gaolers. 2. Kate Millett. Kate Millett conducts Inner Circle Seminar 163 (8 May 2011)



Kate Millett
photograph by Cynthia MacAdams



Kate Millett
photograph by Cynthia MacAdams



Kate Millett
photograph by Cynthia MacAdams

Locked Up: ‘Patients’ and their Gaolers

2. Kate Millett

Kate Millett
conducts
Inner Circle Seminar No. 163
introduced by
Anthony Stadlen
Sunday 8 May 2011
10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

 

Kate Millett (born 14 September 1934) is one of the world’s leading feminists. She is a social historian, author and sculptor. Her books, on a wide range of subjects, include Sexual Politics (1970), The Prostitution Papers (1973), Flying (1974), Sita (1977), The Basement (1979), Going to Iran (1979), Believe me, you don't want a picture of that! (1991), The Politics of Cruelty (1994), A.D.: A Memoir (1995), and Mother Millett (2002). In The Loony Bin Trip (1990) she describes her psychiatric incarceration as a ‘mental patient’ in the USA and Ireland. She went to court to obtain her release in the USA, and succeeded in changing the State of Minnesota’s commitment law. She has continued to expose and oppose psychiatric coercion and torture. In today’s seminar Kate Millett will describe her experiences of psychiatry, and will help us make intelligible the interpersonal and social interactions which led to her being locked up. Your contribution to the discussion will be welcome.

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

Existential Pioneers. 6. Binswanger on ‘Ellen West’. Holzhey-Kunz & Stadlen conduct Inner Circle Seminar 162 (3 April 2011)

Ludwig Binswanger

Existential Pioneers

6. Ludwig Binswanger
The Case of Ellen West
A Daseinsanalytic-Historical Symposium
90 Years after her Death

Alice Holzhey-Kunz
Anthony Stadlen

conduct

Inner Circle Seminar No. 162
Sunday 3 April 2011
10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Ludwig Binswanger (1881—1966) said ‘Ellen West’ (1944) was his ‘paradigm’ case. He claimed that his daseinsanalytic method, based on ‘love’, revealed that he was right to dismiss her as a hopeless case in 1921, and that her suicide a few days later was both an inevitable consequence of her ‘schizophrenia’ and the most ‘authentic’ act of her life.

Alice Holzhey-Kunz is a leading Swiss Daseinsanalyst, who studied and collaborated with Medard Boss, but whose thinking diverges from that of both Binswanger and Boss. She has edited, and written extensively on, Binswanger’s works, including the case of ‘Ellen West’.

Anthony Stadlen is an existential psychotherapist and the convenor of the Inner Circle Seminars. He has researched many of the canonical case studies of psychoanalysis, analytical psychology, Daseinsanalysis and existential analysis, including ‘Ellen West’.

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.

Locked Up: ‘Patients’ and their Gaolers. 1. Vladimir Bukovsky. Vladimir Bukovsky conducts Inner Circle Seminar 161 (13 March 2011)



Vladimir Bukovsky

Locked Up: ‘Patients’ and their Gaolers
1. Vladimir Bukovsky

Vladimir Bukovsky
conducts
Inner Circle Seminar No. 161
introduced by
Anthony Stadlen
Sunday 13 March 2011
10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Vladimir Bukovsky

Vladimir Bukovsky (born 30 December 1942) honours us by conducting the first in a new subseries of Inner Circle Seminars, Locked Up: ‘Patients’ and their Gaolers. We shall interweave this subseries with other seminars as long as the Inner Circle Seminars continue and innocent ‘mental patients’ continue to be incarcerated and forcibly ‘treated’.

Vladimir Bukovsky spent 12 years in Soviet prisons, labour camps and forced-treatment psychiatric prison-‘hospitals’. A man of transcendent courage, integrity and intelligence, he exposed and denounced the brutal system of psychiatric-political imprisonment in the USSR. Bukovsky is careful to call it psychiatric abuse – not ‘abuse of psychiatry’, as it is termed by Western psychiatrists and journalists. In today’s seminar, he will explain how ‘sincere’ Marxist philosophers and ‘correct’ psychiatrists logically concluded – as they now do in China – that a dissident within a ‘perfect’ social system must be ‘insane’. He will discuss the social intelligibility of the interactions which led to his being locked up, as well as of those which lead to people being locked up as ‘mad’ in our society. Nothing could be more urgent than to hear Vladimir Bukovsky speak.

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.

Existential Pioneers. 5. Peter Lomas (1923–2010). Inner Circle Seminar 160 (13 February 2011)

Peter Lomas

Existential Pioneers

5. Peter Lomas
(1923–2010)

Anthony Stadlen
conducts
Inner Circle Seminar No. 160
Sunday 13 February 2011
10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Peter Lomas was born on 27 February 1923 and died on 12 January 2010 aged nearly 87. His central thought, that psychotherapy is ‘ordinary’, made him, paradoxically, an extraordinary figure in the history of psychotherapy. By ‘ordinary’, he meant that psychotherapy deals with decency, love, kindness, creativity, courage and truth; and that it is best described in ordinary language. This he did, with great sensitivity, in ordinary, but very good, English. Well versed in psychoanalytic and existential literature, he valued their authentic findings but disliked their pretentious jargon. A respected member of the British Psychoanalytical Society and founder of the Guild of Psychotherapists, he resigned from both because of what he thought they had become. He then founded a training scheme known as the ‘Outfit’ (officially, the Cambridge Society for Psychotherapy). Today we shall discuss some of Peter Lomas’s books and papers. Your contribution will be most welcome, especially if you were his client, supervisee, colleague or friend.

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.

Existential Pioneers. 4. Martti Siirala (1922–2008). Inner Circle Seminar 159 (23 January 2011)

Martti Siirala

Existential Pioneers

4. Martti Siirala
(1922–2008)
An exploration of his life and work

Anthony Stadlen
(with Ann-Helen Siirala and Marja-Liisa Siirala)
conducts
Inner Circle Seminar No. 159
Sunday 23 January 2011
10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Martti Siirala of Helsinki (born 24 November 1922, died 18 August 2008 aged 85) was one of the world’s great original, best-loved, existential psychotherapists. He and his wife Ann-Helen Siirala spent his 80th birthday with us in London, conducting a well-remembered Inner Circle Seminar. Today, Ann-Helen Siirala and Martti Siirala’s daughter Marja-Liisa Siirala honour us by coming from Helsinki to take part in a seminar on his case studies, his thinking on ‘schizophrenia’, and his theory of ‘social pathology’ – a metaphor for a terrible literal truth. We ask: what are the implications for psychotherapy, and beyond?

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.