INTRODUCTORY COURSE IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOTHERAPY
The PA runs a one-year Introductory Course which is a pathway onto the full Training. Starting every October, the Introductory Course takes place on Tuesday evenings at the PA premises in Hampstead, north London, and consists of seminars as well as a year-long experiential group. The course is an introduction to the PA’s thinking, approach and history of perennially questioning mainstream theories and treatments of human suffering. Thus psychoanalytic approaches are taught in conjunction with philosophy (from Nietzsche, Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein to Derrida, Deleuze and Butler) as well as ideas drawn from art, literature, the radical politics of anti-psychiatry and other areas.
The Introductory Course benefits from groups of students who have a mix of backgrounds – the PA has never prized academic qualifications over other skills and experience. Sometimes people who never intended to become psychotherapists find that the Introductory Course inspires them to follow this path after all. Those who don’t carry on remain welcome members of the larger PA community.
The course costs £840 plus a £50 interview fee. To apply, email office@philadelphia-association.org.uk.
FULL PROGRAMME
Experiential group facilitator: Daniela Bruni
2019–20
TIMINGS
• 8 October: introduction to the course at 5.30pm
• In subsequent weeks, the room is open to students from 5.45pm
• Experiential group begins at 6.15pm and lasts ninety minutes
• 7.45pm break
• Seminar begins at 8pm and lasts ninety minutes
2019
TERM 1
8 October
5.30pm – introductions
Mary Enright, Andrea Heath, Lucy King
Why the PA?
Barbara Latham
15, 22 October
Beginnings
Miranda Glossop
29 October, 5 November
What is psychoanalysis?
Marie-Laurie Davenport
12, 19 November
Introduction to the psychoanalytic concept of transference
Jeremy Cutler
26 November, 3 December
When are notions of ethics and trust (and our theories in general) detrimental to psychotherapy?
Del Loewenthal
2020
TERM 2
21, 28 January
What is community?
Jake Osborne
4, 11 February
The legacy of Laing
Kevin Ball
18 February
David Cooper's anti-psychiatry
Rob White
25 February, 4 March
[Title TBC]
Lucy King
10, 17 March
Nietzsche, scepticism and psychotherapy
Onel Brooks
TERM 3
5 May
On affliction
Andrea Heath
12, 19 May
Dreams
Emma Stoker
26 May, 2 June
Shame, guilt and the road towards self-acceptance
Eli Jesner
9, 16 June
What is the therapy space?
Alison Davies
23, 30 June
Is psychoanalytic theory useful in thinking about today’s varied contemporary family configurations?
Lakis Georghiou
30 June
5.30pm – end-of-year discussion
Andrea Heath and Lucy King