Mad in America

This conference will take place online on 24th September 12.30pm – 6pm and 25th September 12.30 pm – 6pm BST 

Who or what decides who we reckon we (and others) are? Are we the architects of our own identities or else the pliable outcomes of internal and external forces, both conscious and unconscious? How should we navigate the wide medley of rival theories between those two stark positions? Psychology revolves around these core questions for which the repertoire of answers has never been entirely value-free, satisfactory or settled.

Freudian psychoanalysis posits a primal ingredient of autonomy in the newborn as an inherently unruly creature, and later some autonomy is gained insofar as a person works through their acquired demons and delusions. For Erikson, identity is a ‘fundamental organizing principle which develops throughout a life span’ and consists of experiences, relationships, values, beliefs, memories, that make up a person’s subjective sense of self, which can remain stable even as new aspects of self are added. For Lacanians, by contrast, identity appears to be the ultimate objet petit a. In any case, the way one conceives of identity, and its (de)formation, has consequences for how one views the wider world and its varied occupants. Modern identity politics, whatever its merits may be, seems geared to drown out issues of class and of economic advantage.

This online conference examines these questions in several interrelated arenas, (1) in the realm of theory, (2) in the treatment room and group, and (3) in the public sphere, where “identity politics” is prominent and often operates as a divisive instrument socially.