5th European Psychoanalytic Conference for University Students – EPCUS
SURVIVAL Psychoanalytic Perspectives WEBINAR
1 – 3 October‚ 2020
Survival – Psychoanalytic Perspectives
“Only by the concurrent or mutually opposing action of the two primal instincts—Eros and the death-instinct—, never by one or the other alone, can we explain the rich multiplicity of the phenomena of life”
(Freud, 1937, p. 243)
When we chose the topic of the 5th EPCUS-conference, we did not suspect that we will live in an exceptional pandemic situation in these days. Nobody knows how we will survive. For decades it has been denied that our way of life threatens all mankind, although the ecological facts have been known for a long time. Recently, young people have been making it clear that survival in this world is no longer possible without fundamental changes in our policies and way of living.
Freud’s essay entitled “Why war?” is as relevant in our times, full of conflicts, terrorism and extremism, as it was in his days. Psychoanalytically expressed, the destructive and self-destructive potential of man seems unlimited. How can these forces be tamed?
At our fifth EPCUS conference for European students, we will investigate a wide range of questions related to this theme. In clinical practice, analysts treat survivors of all kinds of man-made disasters. These patients survive physically, but often with extensive damage suffered on a psychic level. What are the classical and contemporary conceptualisations which give us ideas on how to confront the horrors of the Holocaust, and many recent collective traumas? What are some places of trauma in individual life, from infantile helplessness to its later potential reappearance, and what are the interrelation between individual and collective, dynamics of dependence and struggle, and the paths of symbolization and its failure?
We invite you to investigate further, together with us, the tension between the logic of survival and the denial of the fragility of life, and to inquire into the use of these by social media.
The presentations will also raise issues of the analyst’s work under the circumstances of war, of struggling with feelings about the planetary system’s collapse, living with the knowledge of death, with dilemmas about sex and gender, carrying memories and surviving through music, with ‘A case of Ode to Joy by Ludwig van Beethoven’.
The EPCUS conference provides the unique opportunity for students and recent graduates to approach the psychoanalytic way of thinking by listening to prominent psychoanalysts, by meeting colleagues, and forming networks, thus gaining perspectives into various aspects of personal development in a distinct atmosphere of learning, exchange, and enthusiasm.
The final programme can be found on the LINK.
General Information:
For further information, please contact Frank Goderniaux: frank.goderniaux@epf-fep.eu , Jasminka Šuljagić: jasminkasuljagic@gmail.com, Alex Janssen: a.m.janssen@xs4all.nl, or Martin Teising: teising@t-online.de
The information about conference registration and payment will be available in due time on the EPF website www.epf-fep.eu
Follow EPCUS on www.instagram.com/epcus_epf/ and www.facebook.com/epcus/
The conference is held from Thursday, October 1 – till Saturday rd October 3, 2020.
Costs Euro 25.
Apply now HERE!
