*INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE: FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR PAPERS*


*PSYCHOTHERAPY AND LIBERATION: **MAY ‘68 ANNIVERSARY CONFERENCE*

*LONDON *

*2-4 MAY (Fri – Sun) 2008*

Milan Kundera said that man’s struggle against power was the struggle of 
memory against forgetting. The fortieth anniversary of May 68, ‘les 
événements’, recalls a time and a movement that aspired to collective 
and individual liberation, and taught us that it was not only ‘man’s’ 
struggle. The outburst of frustration, protest and rebellion in Paris 
was an iconic moment in a mounting wave of democratic culture rooted in 
grass roots activism. Its context included the Civil Rights and Black 
Power movements in the US, the international opposition movements 
against the Vietnam War and apartheid in South Africa, and third world 
independence and liberation struggles in many ways symbolised in 
the growing legend of Che Guevara. 1968 was also the year of the ‘Prague 
Spring’ and of a series of campus protests that spread across the US. It 
was a time when slogans like ‘make love not war’ expressed the belief 
that the personal could be, and indeed is, political. Flower power and 
hippy culture emphasised the value of individual freedom of lifestyle 
and personal rebellion as modes of political action. Student Power drew 
attention to the power structures and repressive discourses inherent in 
the transmission of certain forms of knowledge through ‘teaching’, and 
demanded direct grass roots democracy in universities, colleges and 
schools. ‘Anti-psychiatry’ brought the same values and critiques to bear 
on mental health institutions and professions but not, significantly, on 
many psychotherapy institutes.


It was from this complex matrix and the aftershocks of the events that 
many of us found our way into psychotherapy trainings; seeking perhaps 
some link between internal and external repression, between the internal 
struggles rooted in our early life, our intimate family relationships 
both past and present and the external political world in which those 
early experiences and family relationships were formed and 
conducted; seeking our own liberation from the power of our internal and 
external conflicts through the triumph of memory over repression. These 
events also saw the rebirth of the Women’s Liberation Movement, and a 
questioning of leftist forms of organisation that failed to respond to 
the ‘personal’ aspects of political change.


So what did we find and where have we got to. Has psychotherapy turned 
out to be the pathway to liberation for ourselves and others that we 
originally hoped for? Or have we been caught in the system? Has the 
repressive tolerance of our society and our professional discourse 
incorporated and institutionalised our desires into a discourse of 
conformity and social control? How far has our society and our 
profession transformed alienation, distress, deviance and personal 
struggles for meaning and fulfilment into an assortment 
of psychopathologies and diagnostic categories to be treated and cured 
by psychotherapy? Is psychotherapy still a subversive discourse or is it 
now a way of incorporating everyone into an ever more inclusive and ever 
more stifling model of normality? From the beginning, psychoanalysis 
struggled with the conflicting impulses to be, on the one hand, a 
radical and subversive discourse, and on the other, a respectable form 
of medical or quasi medical treatment. Has the conservative impulse 
now taken over, or is the spirit of ‘68 still alive?


How fragmented has protest and challenge to the status quo become. 
Feminism was a crucial force in the turn to psychotherapy as a form of 
liberation, and the consequences of that have yet to be fully worked 
through. The Gay and Lesbian movements have made considerable progress 
since the early days of ‘Gay Liberation’ and since then Lesbian and Gay 
therapists have pushed psychotherapy towards recognition and acceptance 
of what is becoming known as sexual diversity, while heterosexuality 
still seems relatively circumscribed. Black and ethnic minority groups 
have established a bridgehead in contemporary society and have pushed 
psychotherapy towards addressing ‘difference’ at least at a cultural 
level, though it seems a long way from ‘Black Power’, and post colonial 
theory seems to have made little impact on mainstream psychotherapy. 
Anti-capitalist and anti-globalisation movements, along with eco- 
campaigners have also made headway in the past decade. In Latin America, 
Chavez seems to offer a level of hope not seen at least since the 
Sandinista revolution perhaps even since the death of Che Guevara. 
Meanwhile most of Africa seems to be at war, and peace in the Middle 
East seems as remote as ever, while the so called ‘War on Terror’ erodes 
liberties around the world and attempt to re-establish torture as a 
legitimate activity in defence of something called ‘civilised values’.


Can we speak in any meaningful way about a counter culture or a protest 
movement or are the progressive movements now fragmented into their own 
interest groups? Has identity politics failed to provide, or even 
undermined any sense of solidarity? Is feminism the bridge between the 
person and the political, and how does that transform traditional 
politics and psychotherapy?


*CALL FOR PAPERS*


The conference will have guest speakers linking political struggle and 
personal change. There will be plenary sessions, large group discussions 
parallel paper sessions. The conference registration will be _£120 for 
the three days (or £50 per day)._ We will be negotiating lower 
registration costs for low and unwaged participants.


We now invite submissions from those working in any tradition in 
psychotherapy or political action that connects with the spirit of 1968 
for papers on the intersection between psychotherapy and liberation. How 
can we build on the dynamic set in play by 1968? What are the lessons of 
struggles in the last forty years for what we do now? What practical 
steps should psychotherapists take now to link the personal and the 
political?


Please send proposals of between 100-150 words by January 31^st to the 
organisers: Dick Blackwell ([log in to unmask] 
<mailto:[log in to unmask]>_) Erica Burman ([log in to unmask] 
<mailto:[log in to unmask]>_) or Ian Parker 
([log in to unmask]).Papers <mailto:[log in to unmask]>_ 
Time allocated for papers will be twenty minutes plus discussion time. 
Email the organisers for updated information on the form and content of 
the conference.


-- 
Dr. Craig Fees, RMSA
Archivist
Planned Environment Therapy Trust Archive and Study Centre
Hon. Director, Institute for the History and Work of Therapeutic Environments (a research and study centre of the University of Birmingham)
Church Lane
Toddington near Cheltenham
Glos. GL54 5DQ
United Kingdom

01242 620125
http://www.pettarchiv.org.uk

Keep up to date with Archive News, Events and Recent Accessions: The Archive and study Centre blog at http://news.pettarchiv.org.uk/