Freud Museum London: Psychoanalysis Podcasts

Lynne Segal and Susie Orbach in conversationFeminist writer and activist, Lynne Segal, discusses her recently published Out of Time: The Pleasures and Perils of Ageing with psychotherapist, psychoanalyst, social critic and writer Susie Orbach - author of many celebrated books, amongst them Bodies and On Eating, and recently co-edited Fifty Shades of Feminism, with Lisa Appignanesi and Rachel Holmes.In her autobiography Making Trouble (2007), Segal described herself as ‘a reluctantly ageing woman’, and mused about the need for ‘a feminist sexual politics of ageing’. Out of Time is her answer to these issues.Fears of ageing, Segal argues, are fed to us from childhood in stories and fairy tales full of monstrous, quintessentially female, figures. She confronts the simplistic attributions of generational blame frequently named as causes of the economic crisis, the growing erotic invisibility for ageing women as well as the expectations of gender and ageing that inevitably constrain ambition and political engagement. Out of Time also examines the representation of ageing in the work of other writers (many of them feminists) including Simone de Beauvoir, Alice Walker, Adrienne Rich, Philip Roth, Diane Athill, Joyce Carol Oates, John Berger, Grace Paley, Jo Brand, Jacques Derrida and John Updike.Out of Time: The Pleasures and Perils of Ageing (Novemeber 2013) Verso 

In her study of women and the mind doctors 'Mad, Bad and Sad' and in her belle époque novel, 'Paris Requiem', Lisa Appignanesi draws on the same historical sources of inspiration. The Salpetriere Asylum in Paris, hysteria, as well as understandings of psychiatry and psychoanalysis inform her work across the genres, even her family memoir 'Losing the Dead'. In several of her works - the novel 'Where the Serpent Lives', the conservation memoir 'Tigers in Red Weather', and the poems, 'The Mara Crossing' - poet and writer, Ruth Padel also explores the same fount of material. What is it that so fascinates them about their subjects that they leave a residue to be treated in different forms of writing? And how does genre and form affect the way the 'real' is understood.  The audio on this file was salvaged from a faulty recording. Because of this, the sound quality is lower than usual. Part of a season of performances, talks, films and events accompanying the exhibition 'Mad, Bad and Sad: Women and the Mind Doctors', 10 October 2013 - 2 February 2014.

In her study of women and the mind doctors 'Mad, Bad and Sad' and in her belle époque novel, 'Paris Requiem', Lisa Appignanesi draws on the same historical sources of inspiration. The Salpetriere Asylum in Paris, hysteria, as well as understandings of psychiatry and psychoanalysis inform her work across the genres, even her family memoir 'Losing the Dead'. In several of her works - the novel 'Where the Serpent Lives', the conservation memoir 'Tigers in Red Weather', and the poems, 'The Mara Crossing' - poet and writer, Ruth Padel also explores the same fount of material. What is it that so fascinates them about their subjects that they leave a residue to be treated in different forms of writing? And how does genre and form affect the way the 'real' is understood. The audio on this file was salvaged from a faulty recording. Because of this, the sound quality is lower than usual.Part of a season of performances, talks, films and events accompanying the exhibition 'Mad, Bad and Sad: Women and the Mind Doctors', 10 October 2013 - 2 February 2014.

Jacqueline Rose and Sally Alexander in conversation  To conclude the 'Mad, Bad and Sad: Women and the Mind Doctors' season, Prof Jacqueline Rose and Prof Sally Alexander explore the complex history of hysteria and psychoanalysis in its relationship to women.

Jacqueline Rose and Sally Alexander in conversation To conclude the 'Mad, Bad and Sad: Women and the Mind Doctors' season, Prof Jacqueline Rose and Prof Sally Alexander explore the complex history of hysteria and psychoanalysis in its relationship to women.

Chaired by Dr Estela Welldon.  Are women who kill their children monsters? Actress Lisa Dwan has performed, to wide critical acclaim, French author Veronique Olmi’s play 'Beside the Sea', about a woman who kills her two children. Meike Ziervogel in her novel 'Magda' enters the head of the Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbel’s wife, who killed her six children. Please note that Lisa Dwan's introductory reading has been cut from the podcast. Joining Lisa and Meike will be Dr Amber Jacobs. Dr Jacobs lectures in the department of Psychosocial Studies at Birkbeck College, University of London. She is the author of On Matricide: Myth, Psychoanalysis and the Law of the Mother (Columbia University Press 2008) and has published other articles in the field of feminist theory, myth, psychoanalysis and visual culture. The talk will be chaired by Dr Estela Welldon, psychoanalytical psychotherapist and author of Mother, Madonna, Whore: The Idealisation and Denigration of Motherhood (1988) and Playing with Dynamite: A Personal Approach to the Psychoanalytic Understanding of Perversions, Violence, and Criminality (2011). In association with Peirene Press. Part of a season of performances, talks, films and events accompanying the 'Mad, Bad and Sad: Women and the Mind Doctors' exhibition 10 October 2013 - 2 February 2014.

Chaired by Dr Estela Welldon. Are women who kill their children monsters? Actress Lisa Dwan has performed, to wide critical acclaim, French author Veronique Olmi’s play 'Beside the Sea', about a woman who kills her two children. Meike Ziervogel in her novel 'Magda' enters the head of the Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbel’s wife, who killed her six children.Please note that Lisa Dwan's introductory reading has been cut from the podcast.Joining Lisa and Meike will be Dr Amber Jacobs. Dr Jacobs lectures in the department of Psychosocial Studies at Birkbeck College, University of London. She is the author of On Matricide: Myth, Psychoanalysis and the Law of the Mother (Columbia University Press 2008) and has published other articles in the field of feminist theory, myth, psychoanalysis and visual culture.The talk will be chaired by Dr Estela Welldon, psychoanalytical psychotherapist and author of Mother, Madonna, Whore: The Idealisation and Denigration of Motherhood (1988) and Playing with Dynamite: A Personal Approach to the Psychoanalytic Understanding of Perversions, Violence, and Criminality (2011).In association with Peirene Press.Part of a season of performances, talks, films and events accompanying the 'Mad, Bad and Sad: Women and the Mind Doctors' exhibition 10 October 2013 - 2 February 2014.

Susan Sellers  One of the 20th century's greatest writers and with her husband, Leonard, Freud’s publisher in Britain, Virginia Woolf also struggled with mental illness and the doctors who ‘treated’ her. Prof Susan Sellers discusses aspects of Woolf’s life and work. Susan Sellers, author, translator, editor and novelist, is Professor of English and Related Literature at the University of St Andrews and co-General Editor of the Cambridge University Press edition of the writings of Virginia Woolf. Sellers’ first novel Vanessa and Virginia is in part a fictional biography of Virginia Woolf. Part of a season of performances, talks, films and events accompanying the exhibition 'Mad, Bad and Sad: Women and the Mind Doctors', 10 October 2013 - 2 February 2014.

Susan Sellers One of the 20th century's greatest writers and with her husband, Leonard, Freud’s publisher in Britain, Virginia Woolf also struggled with mental illness and the doctors who ‘treated’ her. Prof Susan Sellers discusses aspects of Woolf’s life and work.Susan Sellers, author, translator, editor and novelist, is Professor of English and Related Literature at the University of St Andrews and co-General Editor of the Cambridge University Press edition of the writings of Virginia Woolf. Sellers’ first novel Vanessa and Virginia is in part a fictional biography of Virginia Woolf.Part of a season of performances, talks, films and events accompanying the exhibition 'Mad, Bad and Sad: Women and the Mind Doctors', 10 October 2013 - 2 February 2014.

Three week evening course with Mary WildSession 2: DEMONS - hysteria in horror/melodramaThe Entity, Sunset Blvd., Black Narcissus, Possession, Teeth, The Piano Teacher"What does it mean to be a woman?" "What does a woman want?" An exploration of female desire provides dynamically elusive answers to these eternal questions. Originating in ancient Greek notions of the 'wandering womb', hysteria was Sigmund Freud’s 'splendid child’, defined in his landmark Dora case study. The hysteric’s body is a theatre where irrepressible ghosts of past trauma are disguised in blindness, deafness, seizures and convulsions – she unconsciously shape-shifts into a medium of warped communication, her symptoms do all the talking for her. At the core of hysteria is a twisted fascination with beauty, so closely bound up with femininity that it runs the risk of replacing it. Through her identification with the male gaze, the hysteric becomes a tragic seductress, desiring the desire of the other. Exaggerated womanliness is the theme of this 'masquerade': the ultimate woman might be an imaginary one, a metaphysical alien-goddess, dreamed up by the male animal. "The woman does not exist," so said Lacan, and pandemonium ensued. But becoming a woman implies extraordinary transformation, at the very least. Hysteria has not disappeared from modern Western world; instead our culture manifests a hidden hysteria but does not recognise it. PROJECTIONS: CINEMA HYSTERIA is a three-part course by MARY WILD examining the central role of hysteria within different film genres (e.g., erotica/romance, horror/melodrama, fantasy/sci-fi). The mystery of femininity will be investigated psychoanalytically via the unconscious connection between the body and language. So rather than the wandering womb, it is in fact the exiled signifier that roams, creeping, searching for a mode of expression among possessed images on the cinema screen.PROJECTIONS is psychoanalysis for film interpretation. PROJECTIONS empowers film spectators to express subjective associations they consider to be meaningful. Expertise in psychoanalytic theory is not necessary - the only prerequisite is the desire to enter and inhabit the imaginary world of film, which is itself a psychoanalytic act. MARY WILD, a Freudian cinephile from Montreal, is the creator of PROJECTIONS.

Three week evening course with Mary Wild Session 2: DEMONS - hysteria in horror/melodrama The Entity, Sunset Blvd., Black Narcissus, Possession, Teeth, The Piano Teacher "What does it mean to be a woman?" "What does a woman want?" An exploration of female desire provides dynamically elusive answers to these eternal questions. Originating in ancient Greek notions of the 'wandering womb', hysteria was Sigmund Freud’s 'splendid child’, defined in his landmark Dora case study. The hysteric’s body is a theatre where irrepressible ghosts of past trauma are disguised in blindness, deafness, seizures and convulsions – she unconsciously shape-shifts into a medium of warped communication, her symptoms do all the talking for her. At the core of hysteria is a twisted fascination with beauty, so closely bound up with femininity that it runs the risk of replacing it. Through her identification with the male gaze, the hysteric becomes a tragic seductress, desiring the desire of the other. Exaggerated womanliness is the theme of this 'masquerade': the ultimate woman might be an imaginary one, a metaphysical alien-goddess, dreamed up by the male animal. "The woman does not exist," so said Lacan, and pandemonium ensued. But becoming a woman implies extraordinary transformation, at the very least.  Hysteria has not disappeared from modern Western world; instead our culture manifests a hidden hysteria but does not recognise it. PROJECTIONS: CINEMA HYSTERIA is a three-part course by MARY WILD examining the central role of hysteria within different film genres (e.g., erotica/romance, horror/melodrama, fantasy/sci-fi). The mystery of femininity will be investigated psychoanalytically via the unconscious connection between the body and language. So rather than the wandering womb, it is in fact the exiled signifier that roams, creeping, searching for a mode of expression among possessed images on the cinema screen. PROJECTIONS is psychoanalysis for film interpretation. PROJECTIONS empowers film spectators to express subjective associations they consider to be meaningful. Expertise in psychoanalytic theory is not necessary - the only prerequisite is the desire to enter and inhabit the imaginary world of film, which is itself a psychoanalytic act. MARY WILD, a Freudian cinephile from Montreal, is the creator of PROJECTIONS.

Professor Griselda PollockGriselda Pollock discusses some of the cases from her virtual feminist museum's exhibition on Trauma and Aesthetic Transformation in the aftermath of the publication of After-affects I After-Images: Trauma and Aesthetic Transformation in the Virtual Feminist Museum (Manchester University Press, 2013)Professor Griselda Pollock is the Director, Centre for Cultural Analysis, Theory & History (CentreCATH), and Professor of Social & Critical Histories of Art, School of Fine Art, History of Art & Cultural Studies, University of Leeds.Part of a season of performances, talks, films and events accompanying the exhibition 'Mad, Bad and Sad: Women and the Mind Doctors', 10 October 2013 - 2 February 2014.

Professor Griselda Pollock Griselda Pollock discusses some of the cases from her virtual feminist museum's exhibition on Trauma and Aesthetic Transformation in the aftermath of the publication of After-affects I After-Images: Trauma and Aesthetic Transformation in the Virtual Feminist Museum (Manchester University Press, 2013) Professor Griselda Pollock is the Director, Centre for Cultural Analysis, Theory & History (CentreCATH), and Professor of Social & Critical Histories of Art, School of Fine Art, History of Art & Cultural Studies, University of Leeds. Part of a season of performances, talks, films and events accompanying the exhibition 'Mad, Bad and Sad: Women and the Mind Doctors', 10 October 2013 - 2 February 2014.

Three week evening course with Mary WildSession 1: SEDUCTION - erotica/romanceBasic Instinct, Bitter Moon, Lola Montes, The Seven Year Itch, Belle De Jour, Talk To Her"What does it mean to be a woman?" "What does a woman want?" An exploration of female desire provides dynamically elusive answers to these eternal questions. Originating in ancient Greek notions of the 'wandering womb', hysteria was Sigmund Freud’s 'splendid child’, defined in his landmark Dora case study. The hysteric’s body is a theatre where irrepressible ghosts of past trauma are disguised in blindness, deafness, seizures and convulsions – she unconsciously shape-shifts into a medium of warped communication, her symptoms do all the talking for her. At the core of hysteria is a twisted fascination with beauty, so closely bound up with femininity that it runs the risk of replacing it. Through her identification with the male gaze, the hysteric becomes a tragic seductress, desiring the desire of the other. Exaggerated womanliness is the theme of this 'masquerade': the ultimate woman might be an imaginary one, a metaphysical alien-goddess, dreamed up by the male animal. "The woman does not exist," so said Lacan, and pandemonium ensued. But becoming a woman implies extraordinary transformation, at the very least. Hysteria has not disappeared from modern Western world; instead our culture manifests a hidden hysteria but does not recognise it. PROJECTIONS: CINEMA HYSTERIA is a three-part course by MARY WILD examining the central role of hysteria within different film genres (e.g., erotica/romance, horror/melodrama, fantasy/sci-fi). The mystery of femininity will be investigated psychoanalytically via the unconscious connection between the body and language. So rather than the wandering womb, it is in fact the exiled signifier that roams, creeping, searching for a mode of expression among possessed images on the cinema screen.PROJECTIONS is psychoanalysis for film interpretation. PROJECTIONS empowers film spectators to express subjective associations they consider to be meaningful. Expertise in psychoanalytic theory is not necessary - the only prerequisite is the desire to enter and inhabit the imaginary world of film, which is itself a psychoanalytic act. MARY WILD, a Freudian cinephile from Montreal, is the creator of PROJECTIONS.

Three week evening course with Mary Wild Session 1: SEDUCTION - erotica/romanceBasic Instinct, Bitter Moon, Lola Montes, The Seven Year Itch, Belle De Jour, Talk To Her "What does it mean to be a woman?" "What does a woman want?" An exploration of female desire provides dynamically elusive answers to these eternal questions. Originating in ancient Greek notions of the 'wandering womb', hysteria was Sigmund Freud’s 'splendid child’, defined in his landmark Dora case study. The hysteric’s body is a theatre where irrepressible ghosts of past trauma are disguised in blindness, deafness, seizures and convulsions – she unconsciously shape-shifts into a medium of warped communication, her symptoms do all the talking for her. At the core of hysteria is a twisted fascination with beauty, so closely bound up with femininity that it runs the risk of replacing it. Through her identification with the male gaze, the hysteric becomes a tragic seductress, desiring the desire of the other. Exaggerated womanliness is the theme of this 'masquerade': the ultimate woman might be an imaginary one, a metaphysical alien-goddess, dreamed up by the male animal. "The woman does not exist," so said Lacan, and pandemonium ensued. But becoming a woman implies extraordinary transformation, at the very least.  Hysteria has not disappeared from modern Western world; instead our culture manifests a hidden hysteria but does not recognise it. PROJECTIONS: CINEMA HYSTERIA is a three-part course by MARY WILD examining the central role of hysteria within different film genres (e.g., erotica/romance, horror/melodrama, fantasy/sci-fi). The mystery of femininity will be investigated psychoanalytically via the unconscious connection between the body and language. So rather than the wandering womb, it is in fact the exiled signifier that roams, creeping, searching for a mode of expression among possessed images on the cinema screen. PROJECTIONS is psychoanalysis for film interpretation. PROJECTIONS empowers film spectators to express subjective associations they consider to be meaningful. Expertise in psychoanalytic theory is not necessary - the only prerequisite is the desire to enter and inhabit the imaginary world of film, which is itself a psychoanalytic act. MARY WILD, a Freudian cinephile from Montreal, is the creator of PROJECTIONS.