The word and concept of ‘Schizophrenia’ was created by the Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler in 1908 and became well known when his magnum opus was published in 1911 – Dementia Praecox or the Group of Schizophrenias (Bleuler, 1911/1950). Emil Kraepelin’s Dementia Praecox was the previous name for this severe mental […]

Most therapists, particularly those working with younger clients referred by their families, schools or colleges, will know what it’s like to encounter a client with a central issue or problem that others in their life are eagerly waiting to be resolved. The awareness for the therapist that ‘results’ are expected of them can be intense—even […]

When I had a breakdown nearly twenty years ago I worked as a senior executive in the media. I attended therapy sessions at the crack of dawn so I wouldn’t miss a moment of work. It did not occur to me to ask if I could take time off for sessions. In fact, it seemed […]

Common belief has it that aging is analogous to dementia, and more specifically, to Alzheimer’s disease. The latter indeed has become the plague of a society whose continuous anguish surrounding death condemns the “demented” to be seen as bizarre and deviant, depriving them of their subjectivity, if not their humanity […]

Men who have experienced sexual violation often have a kind of invisibility in the world. They are not prominent in literature about therapy, in research about sexual violation, or even generally in the public awareness. This has begun to change somewhat, recently, in the aftermath of the revelations about high-profile predatory figures in the media […]

I would like to take you back to my childhood. I was around 5 years old, sitting on a corner of my grandparents’ greenish sofa, in their living room. There was a warm breeze coming through the open door of the balcony, and the white curtain did that dance that fluids do, to embody the […]

When we at Stillpoint Spaces Berlin first met with sociologist Polina Aronson end of Summer ’17, it felt like we had found each other: our explicit interest to bring out to a wider public deceptively simple concepts defining our everyday lives found, in Aronson’s personal and professional investments, a clear and passionate voice. Soon after, […]

Often when people hear the term “trauma” their minds turn to the terrible. They picture escaping from a war zone, physical or sexual abuse, or surviving a natural disaster. While these are examples of severely traumatic events, or what we call “big T trauma”, the truth is trauma’s scope is far broader and subtler than […]

“I guess his time just ran out. And he just—I don’t know how to put it—took advantage of being free.” ~ Aquaintance of the accused “On the level of historical insight and political thought there prevails an ill-defined, general agreement that the essential structure of all civilizations is at the breaking point.” ~ Hannah Arendt, […]

In June, news outlets announced that the World Health Organisation classified “Gaming Disorder” as a mental health condition classified under “disorder due to addictive behaviours”. Meanwhile, the NHS is opening its first gaming disorder clinic in London. Whether or not you agree with the diagnostic label, there is no doubt that we are now […]

Today a new client invited me to disclose my views to him on a very specific political issue that connected to his cultural identity. It was a surprising request, but the message was clear: where I stood on this subject could be an obstacle to us working together. He needed to feel comfortable exploring this […]

It was Welcome Week at the university where I teach.  Students were arriving, excited, nervous, some imagining a new life in which they could redefine themselves, others perhaps anxious or sad at what they’d left behind or brought with them.  For me, it had been a busy summer with little chance to relax, various troubles, […]

“…reading is the easiest thing. It is effortless liberty, a pure yes that blossoms in immediacy.”  ~ Maurice Blanchot One of the most enduring memories of myself learning something in the early years of school, is a physics lesson on surface tension. It is the only thing I remember from several years of classes on […]

ONLINE RELATING AND ME Social-media first came into my life when I was well into my twenties, hence already an ‘adult’.  However, I was surprised by its ability to throw me back into what felt like a very adolescent state of anxiety – deliberating over what to post, who to ‘friend’, and how to present […]

The first time I watch Black Panther, at the IMAX cinema, I don’t feel great. If feeling good is the definition of therapeutic then, my first answer is no. Courtesy of 3D glasses, my stomach lurches through various chase and fight scenes and the vertiginous land-sky-scapes of Wakanda – the fictional African nation in which the film […]

On February 21, 2018, Leon Brenner, a Ph.D. candidate at Tel Aviv University and a guest scholar at the Freie Universität Institute of Philosophy in Berlin, specialising in the fields of Lacanian psychoanalysis, philosophy and epistemology, gave a lecture at Stillpoint Spaces Berlin entitled Political Truth in the Age of Populism […]

The Anthropocene is the buzzword of contemporary ecocriticism. Notwithstanding the status of the term’s scientificity (or lack thereof), I find in its account of the historical present the surgical precision of poetry. The Anthropocene can be interpreted either as the exaltation of the human, become now so awesome as to constitute a planetary force, or […]

When you read these, I, that was visible, am become invisible;Now it is you, compact, visible, realizing my poems, seeking me;Fancying how happy you were, if I could be with you, and become your comrade;Be it as if I were with you. (Be not too certain but I am now with you.) Walt Whitman “Leaves […]

You don’t need to be a psychoanalyst to know the world has gone mad. In fact, it’s always been obvious that irrational and darker passions shape history. But now, a relentless gush of tweets, soundbites and video allows us to watch this madness unfold in real time. The same media inebriation may also be fostering […]

Tim Fairhall has played on many of the most significant stages in Britain and internationally, playing in a diverse bank of musical situations that appear, even from a distance, to explore the convergent nature of contemporary jazz, free jazz and ‘improv’. Tim performed with his Keskeverya Quartet […]

In October 1977, deep in the cellars of the Palais Wilson in Geneva, Switzerland (formerly the Headquarters of the Institute of Psychology, and the current headquarters of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights) there was discovered—by whom, the record does not tell—a box. Inside this box was a trove of […]

Let me start with a little context: I am writing this essay in the laundromat of a tiny highway-town in the industrial-agricultural region of middle America, on the snow-swept cusp of the Red River Valley. No-man’s land, fly-over-country, Trump’s America. The laundromat is empty but for me with my critical-theoretical books, my computer, my smartphone, […]

The sexual assault and misconduct allegations against film producer Harry Weinstein that began to emerge on October 5, 2017 have precipitated a wave of similar allegations against powerful men, in some cases, ending decades-long careers. One of the many striking things about these revelations is that this kind of behavior has been widespread and repressed—hidden, […]

As its provocative and evocative title suggests, Scott A. Dimovitz’s monograph Angela Carter: Surrealist, Psychologist, Moral Pornographer (2016, Routledge) is not for the faint of heart. But for those interested in the ongoing relationship between literature and psychoanalysis, and the way their cross-pollination may have particular relevance today, this work of serious literary criticism will […]

First Brexit. Then Trump. Were they related? Were “dark forces” working to manipulate the population at large to achieve their sinister results? A few months ago, I would have thought this perspective quite paranoid. However, after following Carole Cadwalladr’s shocking and surprising investigative reporting into the hidden machinations of invisible algorithms, Google searches and social […]

In 1920s Berlin, psychoanalyst Karen Horney challenged central aspects of Freudian theory in Weimar culture. She opened a new place for recognition of women’s sexuality within the psychoanaly tical community of her time. Though Horney did not explicitly address the plurality of desire, today her legacy brings to light tensions between the sexual desires […]

I have always been drawn to those who confuse me. They are the ones I love, the ones I detest, the ones I admire and envy and curse. It began with my parents, then my brother, then the early teachers and the friends from the neighborhood. Having learned how to read, this circle expanded rapidly. […]

Our culture is more connected up than it ever was before, and for this there are consequences. The development of the technologies that we have is no accident. Nor, as I have argued in my book The Psychodynamics of Social Networking, is it the result of “Technological Determinism” — the prevailing idea in the popular […]