Centenary webinars
We're celebrating 100 years of our institute with our Tavistock and Portman talks. Join us for a series of stimulating webinars with leading practitioners in mental health.
Jessica Yakeley and Stanley Ruszczynski will describe the past, present and future work of the Portman Clinic, first established in 1931 as the clinical arm of what came to be known as the Institute for the Study and Treatment of Delinquency.
25 February 2020 – This event has now passed. Read more on the event page.
The story of psychoanalytic and psychodynamic thought is the story of the Tavistock and Portman. From attachment theory and infant observation, to applying psychoanalytic and systemic approaches in varied settings, our ideas have led to changes in care, education and beyond. Join us for a fascinating look at the history of our ideas with Sebastian Kraemer and Glenn Glossling.
Date TBC
15 September 2020 - Ben Neal and Robyn Vesey (with Francesca Cardona and Vega Roberts)
Organisational consultant Francesca Cardona will lead a panel discussion and address the current crises. She and the panel will make connections with other societal and organisational crises and discuss the relevance of the Tavistock approach in these contexts.
Ben Neal will consider the implications of a psychoanalytic perspective on work during the COVID-19 crisis. He will look at the impact on people being forced to inhabit and work in unfamiliar digital spaces, the erosion of the boundary between personal and professional roles, and the loss of informal and liminal spaces.
Ben will briefly introduce some psychoanalytic concepts regarding the function of work in adult life and argue that virtual working imposes significant limitations on these important functions. The presentation will draw from examples from consultancy work carried out for emergency provisions during the COVID-19 crisis with teams and individuals who have been working both virtually and in the field.
Robyn Vesey will share some of her recent experiences working with leaders managing services, which like many have had to respond to the pandemic. She will outline the challenges they have had to respond to, how they have used consultancy sessions as a leadership pair, and how containment has been a central part of this work.
Robyn will offer an account of the potential benefits of consultancy, articulating these through a frame of containment. She will offer reflections on what promotes and hinders the success of organisational consultancy from the Tavistock approach where containment is central, but cannot always be taken up in a particular organisational context.
5 October 2020 - Gwen Hanrahan and Ajit Menon (with Francesca Cardona and Vega Roberts)
Steve Bambrough and Louise Allnutt will set the scene with a look at some of the key theories of Freud, Bion, Klein and others. They will look at the formation of thinking capacity from a developmental perspective. They will then go on to illustrate some of this from their clinical experience of working with patients who have fragmented thoughts and projections and whose projections actively undermine the capacity for thought.
Steve and Louise will explore their thoughts on what it is (and what it might mean) to create a space in the mind for thinking activity which can hold on to and contain anxiety (primitive emotions) while being able to hold on to doubt and work creatively at producing thoughts/feelings. Reflecting via the use of another mind in supervision or team reflection will be explored. They will also touch on some of the physiological aspects of this process.
30 November 2020