Episodes
Wednesday Dec 11, 2013
Anna Kavan and the Politics of Madness
Wednesday Dec 11, 2013
Wednesday Dec 11, 2013
Victoria Walker
Author Anna Kavan’s critical and popular reception since her death in 1968 has been defined by a cult of personality fuelled by revelations about her psychiatric breakdown, heroin use and adoption of her own fictional character’s name. Victoria Walker unravels some of the accumulated mythology around this writer, and examines her complex association with, and interest in, early twentieth-century psychiatry and psychotherapy.
As well as being treated in private asylums and nursing homes, Kavan underwent a short analysis at the Tavistock Clinic, experienced Ludwig Binswanger’s method of existential psychotherapy at the Bellevue Sanatorium, and had a close personal relationship with her longtime psychiatrist Karl Bluth. Kavan promoted a radical politics of madness, giving voice to the disenfranchised and marginalized psychiatric patient and presaging the anti-psychiatry movement.
Dr Victoria Walker’s research focuses on twentieth-century women writers and fictional representations of psychiatric treatment. She wrote the introduction to the recent edition of Kavan’s 'I Am Lazarus'. She teaches at King’s College, London and administers the Anna Kavan Society.
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.
Wednesday Dec 11, 2013
Women in Prison, Women in Treatment
Wednesday Dec 11, 2013
Wednesday Dec 11, 2013
Dr Cleo Van Velsen in conversation with Dr Lisa Appignanesi
Dr Cleo Van Velsen is Consultant Psychiatrist in Forensic Psychotherapy in a Personality Disorder Medium Secure Unit in East London. She is also a psychoanalyst. Although this is a male unit she has experience in the assessment, management and treatment of women in forensic contexts - women who have suffered trauma and engaged in violence. She discusses her experiences of working with forensic patients with Lisa Appignanesi, whose soon to be published book 'Trials of Passion' explores the intersection of the law and psychiatry.
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.
Tuesday Dec 03, 2013
Susan Hiller in conversation with Susie Orbach
Tuesday Dec 03, 2013
Tuesday Dec 03, 2013
Tuesday Dec 03, 2013
The Many Minds of Marilyn Monroe
Tuesday Dec 03, 2013
Tuesday Dec 03, 2013
Sarah Churchwell
In 1956 while filming The Prince and the Showgirl with Laurence Olivier, Marilyn Monroe suffered a crisis that brought her to see Anna Freud. Marilyn had a long history of encounters with the psychoanalytic profession. Her trajectory illuminates some of the difficulties celebrity engenders. Writer and broadcaster Prof. Sarah Churchwell, author of ‘Careless People: Murder, Mayhem and the Invention of The Great Gatsby’ and ‘The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe’, discusses Marilyn's life.
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.