In this two-day course designed exclusively for the Freud Museum, London and to mark the 50th anniversary of her landmark publication Psychoanalysis and Feminism, Professor Juliet Mitchell explores the condition of women today, the development and current state of feminism, and the value of psychoanalytic thinking in political thought and action.

Local feminism has expanded to ‘global feminism’ but patriarchy is still entrenched and psychoanalysis is still needed. Psychoanalysis and Feminism had a double task of explaining Freud’s work both to its mistaken attackers and at the same time to those who were ignorant of it. Our perception of patriarchy has changed and, to a degree, the reality of the woman’s world. Yet the real gains made by some women have exposed the inordinate depth of the problem to which others remain subjected. Not only are women’s aspirations countermanded by actual conditions but also by what has been revealed in so many cultures as an institutional violence against them. This is the situation of all oppressed groups of which women constitute the nub providing for others the negative mantel of ‘femininity’.

Society works much better if we don’t know about what we desire but must not do. And what constitutes the creation of culture and society for all of us feels as though it is how we are biologically made. In fact it is simply unconscious. But this breaks down – in our dreams we get whatever we want and in mental ill-health we become ill on account of this success. Clinical psychoanalysis demonstrates that what has been subject to unconscious thinking can become conscious and we can decide what to do about our psychological predicaments. Psychoanalysis is as powerful a tool for feminism now as it was fifty years ago, and it remains central to our understanding of oppression and liberation.

Tickets £100
• This is a two-day course which will begin at 4pm and end at 8pm on both days, with an allotted tea break between 5:30-6:30pm
• Attendees will receive access to the recording on the Monday after the course, available to watch for 1 month
• Freud Museum Members and Patrons receive 20% off the standard ticket price on all events, courses, conferences and On Demand programming