The Freud Conference is an annual Melbourne event, which applies psychoanalytic thinking to the broader psychosocial context, combining it with clinical material. Based on different themes each year, and linked with current affairs, eminent international and local speakers from the psychoanalytic community and related academic fields are invited to present their work.
The Freud Conference was originally established 1977 by Prof Douglas Kirsner, Deakin University, with the assistance of colleague Ron Gilbert. The coastal seaside town of Lorne was the location for its inaugural delivery, attended by sixty interested colleagues. In 1998, after 21 years, Doug decided to cease running this very popular annual conference so Dr Christine Hill took over responsibility for keeping it going. Without university backing she formed a small committee of volunteers from membership of the three major clinical Australian Psychoanalytic Associations, and included an Administrator and Design/Media Consultant. The Freud Conference has continued to attract very wide attendances from all over Australia and internationally. Philip Adams, a very experienced radio broadcaster, and with a keen interest in psychoanalysis, usually interviews the keynote speakers on his RN Late-Night- Live program. This provides great nationwide advance publicity for the conference.
The current committee members are:
Chris Hill (AAGP)
Ros Glickfeld (APAS)
Maryana Podreka (AAGP)
Gurli Hughes (Administrator)
Damien Pierce (Design/Media)
Webinar Consultant:
Jeremy Wilmot
The Organising Committee members are drawn from the following psychoanalytic organisations:
The Australian Association of Group Psychotherapists
The Australian Association of Group Psychotherapists Inc. (AAGP Inc). was founded in 1973 to promote the development, training in, and practice of psychoanalytic group psychotherapy in Australia. The Association is a member of the European Group Analytic Training Institutions Network (EGATIN) and an organizational affiliate of the International Association of Group Psychotherapists. It has close links with the Group Analytic Society, London.
Nationally there are 40 members, with another 11 in training. Members have a postgraduate clinical qualification usually in psychiatry, psychology or social work. Training Programmes undertaken by the AAGP are provided in Victoria and Queensland. Members work as both individual and group psychotherapists, provide supervision for other professionals, are involved in teaching and research at tertiary level, offer training in psychoanalytic group psychotherapy, and organize groupanalytic workshops and open days for the wider public.
Group psychotherapy, provided by AAGP members, is guided by psychoanalytic principles, and is an economic and effective form of treatment. Psychoanalysis is based on the theory that our present is shaped by our past. We are often unaware of how experiences can affect us and painful feelings can remain in the unconscious mind. These unacknowledged feelings from past events can influence our current mood and behaviour, and contribute to problems with self-esteem, personality, relationships and work. Common problem-solving often fails to provide relief.
The group provides a setting in which self-understanding, experiential learning and peer support can combine to bring about those internal changes necessary to improve self-acceptance, and personal and work relationships. This is accomplished through reflection, the interaction of individuals within the group, and with the facilitation of experienced group psychotherapists, trained within our framework.
For further information, and details of our Training Programmes please refer to our website: www.groupanalysis.net.au
The Australian Psychoanalytical Society
The Australian Psychoanalytic Society was established in 1973, but psychoanalysis was already practiced in Australia since the 1930’s and in 1940 the first Institute for Psychoanalysis was founded in Melbourne and in 1951 in Sydney. The Australian Society at present operates through three Institutes and Branches in Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide. Its main activities include the training of psychoanalysts, the furthering of research, the developing of the theory and practice of psychoanalysis, the diffusion of psychoanalytic thinking and ideas through public lectures, seminars, open days.
The Society is a component Society of the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA) which is worldwide body of more then 11.000 members in 34 countries founded by Sigmund Freud in 1910, and whose role is to set and monitor training, professional and ethical standards. As a component society, the Australian Psychoanalytical Society is the only body in Australia authorised by the IPA to educate, train and qualify psychoanalysts. The Australian Society is also member of the European Psychoanalytic Federation, which includes all the Psychoanalytic Societies of Europe plus Israeli and Australia.
Who Are We?
The Society has currently 80 members and 12 candidates. Psychoanalysts come from different professional backgrounds, mainly psychiatry, psychology and social work. We work in the public health sector and in private practice. Our members have different areas of interest: some specialise in early intervention with mothers and babies, treatment of children, adolescents and families, working with groups apart from working with adults. A psychoanalyst must have undergone and completed a training approved by the International Psychoanalytical Association.
What is Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a ‘talking therapy’. It is usually more intensive then other forms of psychotherapy and it is a method of exploring conscious and unconscious layers of the mind. Psychoanalysis had developed and changed since the times of Freud, and the understanding gained about mental suffering and mental illness – especially in the last 50 years – has enabled psychoanalysts to help a much wider spectrum of patients, with more serious emotional disturbances. Psychoanalysis is a way of understanding the many complex factors and influences that make us who we are: early experiences, relationships with ones parents, life events, traumas, losses, sexuality. Such factors shape our internal experiences and our relationships, our view of the world and of ourselves, and create patterns of behaviour that gets repeated, but which often remain unconscious and so unavailable to change and integration.
How it works
Psychoanalysis provides a setting in which such internal experiences are explored and understood in the way they affect our relationships to others and in the way we conduct our lives. In re-living, in the presence of the analyst, old patterns of attachment and behaviour, new insights can be gained and new ways can be found to deal with old problems or with situations that feel stuck. The process of becoming to know oneself through the relationship with the analyst can be emotionally painful but also very rewarding, and – when successful – leads to long lasting changes in the personality, and to developments in personal relationships and increased freedom to make creative choices.
Website: www.psychoanalysis.asn.au
The Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Association of Australasia
The PPAA is a federated body composed of member organisations from most Australian States and New Zealand, as well as the Child Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Association of Australia. The Association was formed in 1980 with the aim of maintaining high standards of practice, training and ethics in psychoanalytic psychotherapy.
Through our member organisations there are over 200 psychoanalytic psychotherapists involved in the PPAA. These psychoanalytic psychotherapists come primarily from professional backgrounds in psychology, medicine, psychiatry and social work and have undergone training programs (or their equivalent) which are operated by the Member Organisations and ratified by the PPAA.
Our members treat people suffering from a wide range of emotional and mental disorders including depression, trauma, loss, anxiety states, phobias, psychosomatic disorders, disorders of the self and self-esteem.
Our members have undergone training programs which are operated by the Member Organisations and ratified by The PPAA. In both Australia and New Zealand, training programs in this discipline are at a post graduate level and are modelled on, and have links with established and highly regarded training programs overseas.
Psychoanalytic psychotherapy is a distinct discipline with a long history, and a tradition and body of knowledge and practice, which is constantly evolving as new information is absorbed. In trying to define our theoretical approach to the treatment of emotional problems we would include a premise that many emotional and cognitive functions and experiences take place in the unconscious and can be modified by insight or self understanding. A further premise is that the therapy takes place in the evolving relationship between the therapist and patient where transference and counter- transference issues in that relationship can be explored to shed light on the patient’s characteristic ways of functioning and lead to healthier and more effective solutions. The PPAA produces the Australasian Journal of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy.
Web site: www.theppaa.com