FLi Research Symposium Chronic Depression and Trauma in Childhood

EVENT OVERVIEW

FLi is delighted to host a much-needed INTERDISCIPLINARY DIALOGUE of psychoanalysis with psychiatry, psychology and the psychotherapies looking at recent evidence supporting the effectiveness of psychoanalytic therapy (PAT) in the treatment of chronically depressed adults who have experienced adverse childhood events.

Recent comprehensive research shows that people who suffer from ongoing chronic depression as a result of adverse childhood experiences are shown to have better outcomes, including lasting structural change when they undergo frequent, long-term psychotherapy. https://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.2024.112 open access

THIS SYMPOSIUM focuses on the implementation, findings and implications of this major research. Together we will give psychoanalysts, psychologists, psychiatrists, psychotherapists and other stakeholders in mental health services provision, the chance to hear about the research from Dr Lina Krakau, one of the lead authors reporting the work, and to ask questions, to discuss and to get to grips with the significance of the findings, and to reflect on what future actions might be indicated. We will be joined also by Prof. Marianne Leuzinger-Bohleber and Dr Jane G. Tillman, as well as a host of discussants and respondents.

This event will be of interest to the fields of psychoanalysis, psychiatry, psychotherapy, general medical practice, and to stakeholders in mental health services provision.

See below for detailed biographies of all participants and the full Symposium program.

EARLY BIRD TICKETS AVAILABLE UNTIL 25 July

7 CPD points will be awarded by APPI.

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The symposium: We invite your attendance for this conversation and collaboration with allied mental health care professionals, around the efficacy of psychoanalytic therapy (PAT) in the treatment of chronically depressed adults who have experienced adverse childhood events, through understanding the use and place of PAT throughout Europe and the US.

Date and Venue: The symposium will take place from 10am to 4pm on 4th October 2025 at the marvellous Museum of Literature Ireland, MoLI, via private entrance on St Stephen’s Green. This encaptivating and serene museum is home to a most beautiful celebration of Irish writers past and present. The event will take place in the elegant surroundings of the Old Physics Theatre overlooking the equally elegant and majestic Iveagh Gardens. Private access to the Readers Garden and into Iveagh Garden for attendees.

Event Type: Participants may join us online and in-person with early bird tickets available until 15 July 2025. A morning reception and lunch will be included.

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DETAILED BIOGRAPHIES AND SYMPOSIUM PROGRAM BELOW

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EVENT DESCRIPTION

Mental Health – Treatment Collaborations

IN THIS 21ST CENTURY KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY, mental health services will increasingly need to develop treatment models that issue from alliances between increasingly differentiated fields of knowledge, where evidence demonstrating efficacy and effectiveness will come from collaborative interdisciplinary approaches (Gullestad, et al. 2024).

Depression

The first quarter of the 21st century has seen major societal upheavals - especially acute over the last 10 years - due to technological developments, climate crises, the global pandemic, political unrest and the devastating effects of wars. WHO was reporting that by 2015 the total number of people with depression globally would exceed 300 million, while suicides already numbered 800,000 per year.

Here in Ireland, the Annual Report on the Activities of Irish Psychiatric Units and Hospitals 2023, based on data from the National Psychiatric Inpatient Reporting System (NPIRS) observes:

• depressive disorders had the highest rate of all admissions, 68.8 per 100,000 population.
• depressive disorders had the highest proportion of all (23%) and first (25%) admissions.
• re-admissions accounted for 63% of all admissions.
• depressive disorders accounted for 115,450 of the 774,211 bed days.

We also know now that people with a history of childhood trauma are at higher risk for recurring and persistent episodes of depression (chronic depression) as well as PTSD.

Psychoanalytic Treatment

Research has shown psychoanalytic therapy to be effective in the treatment of chronic depression. Very recent studies have shown that 70-80% of chronically depressed patients were able to achieve a lasting alleviation of their depressive symptoms in long-term psychotherapy, often in conjunction with structural change.

The LAC Study, 2024The LAC study was a multicentre, controlled, single blind four-arm trial, with a preference and a randomized section (Leuzinger-Bohleber, et al. 2019). This trial, conducted over a 5-year duration, had 252 participants between 21 and 60 years of age. Data assessment was made at entry (t0), at one year (t1), at 2 years (t2), at 3 years (t3), at 4 years (t4), at 5 years (t5).

https://doi.org/10.1177/0706743718780340 open access

The ‘KEY PRACTITIONER MESSAGE’ of the LAC depression study looking at 5-year outcomes after long-term psychoanalytic (PAT) and cognitive-behavioural (CBT) treatments (Beutal, Krakau, et al, 2022) was the following:

• Long-term cognitive behavioural and psychoanalytical treatments achieved lasting changes regarding depressive symptoms.
• Both treatments resulted in structural change, with greater changes following psychoanalytic treatment.

https://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.2024.112 open access

THIS SYMPOSIUM will centre on drawing attention to this most recent, important research. Together we will give psychoanalysts, psychologists, psychiatrists, psychotherapists and other stakeholders in mental health services provision, the chance to hear about the research from Dr Lina Krakau, one of the lead authors reporting the work, to ask questions, to discuss and to get to grips with the significance of the findings.

We will also hear from Professor Marianne Leuzinger-Bohleber, the leading figure in the architecture of this and other prominent psychoanalytic research studies, carried out with great sophistication over a grand scale, involving several hundreds of clinically depressed patients, over two hundred therapists, as well as researchers, in multiple sites across the EU, the UK and the USA.

In addition, Jane G. Tillman, PhD., ABPP, Evelyn Stefansson Nef Director of the Erikson Institute for Education, Research, and Advocacy at the Austen Riggs Residential Psychiatric Centre, Stockbridge, Massachusetts, will join us to talk about psychoanalytic research and treatment in Institutional and community settings in the US.

We in Ireland, and elsewhere, are in the lucky position of being able to have access to this outstanding research, to be able to learn about it and to be able to use it.

PROGRAM

9.30am REGISTRATION & RECEPTION

Harpists’ recital and morning refreshments

10am A WORD OF WELCOME AND SETTING THE SCENE

Helena Texier, Director, The Freud Lacan Institute

10.15am DEPRESSION & TRAUMA IN THE 21st CENTURY (why psychoanalytic research matters)

Presenter - Professor Marianne Leuzinger-Bohleber, MD Dr Phil.

10.45am Respondent - Dr Aoife Twohig, Consultant in Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, Crumlin and Temple Street Hospitals, Dublin

11am CHRONIC DEPRESSION & TRAUMA IN CHILDHOOD: THE ROLE OF LONG-TERM PSYCHOTHERAPY – EVIDENCE & EFFECTIVENESS

Presenter – Dr Lina Krakau, post-doctoral researcher at the Universities of Wuppertal and Mainz, Germany

11.45am General Discussion

12.30pm LUNCH

1.30pm WHEN PSYCHOANALYSIS WORKS IN THE PSYCHIATRIC SETTING

Presenter - Dr Jane Tillman, Head of Research & Education, Austen Riggs Center, USA

2pm OBSERVATIONS ON TIME SPENT AT AUSTEN RIGGS

Respondent - Dr Eve Watson, Course Director, Freud Lacan Institute

2.30pm PANEL DISCUSSION - RESEARCHING PSYCHOANALYSIS, WHAT’S NEXT?

Chair - Dr Aoife Twohig Chair, Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist, Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist.

Respondents

Dr Noreen Giffney, Lecturer & Psychoanalytic Researcher, University of Ulster, Belfast. Psychoanalytic psychotherapist

Dr John O’Connor, Associate Professor in Clinical Psychology, Trinity College Dublin. Researcher, Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist.

Dr. Pauline Twomey, Consultant Psychiatrist, PICU (Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit). Phoenix Care Centre. Retired.

4pm THANK YOU & CLOSE

SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES

Helena Texier is a director of the Freud Lacan institute, FLi. She has been a working psychoanalytic practitioner for over 30 years and is clinical director of a group private practice in Dublin, Ireland. She has been involved in post-graduate professional training and has taught in TCD, and at SVUH UCD clinical training programme at Masters’ level. She was Chair of the Association for Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy in Ireland and is a board member of the Psychoanalytic Section of the Irish Council for Psychotherapy. Editor of a Lacanian psychoanalytic journal for a decade, she recently co-edited with Eve Watson Freud’s Principal Case Studies Revisited: Freudian-Lacanian Psychoanalysts Reconsider the Legacy, Routledge, 2025. Her research interest is in the relationship - and its effects - of psychoanalysts to science and research.

Marianne Leuzinger-Bohleber, MD Dr Phil. was professor of psychoanalysis at the University of Kassel and director of the Sigmund Freud Institute, in Frankfurt. She is currently research fellow at the University of Medicine Mainz and is training analyst of the German Psychoanalytical Association. She was chair of the Research Board of the IPA (2010-2021) and is a current member and former chair of the IPA Subcommittee for Migration and Refugees. She received the Mary Sigourney Award in 2016, the Haskell Norman Prize for Excellence in Psychoanalysis in 2017, the Robert S. Wallerstein Fellowship (2022-2027) and the IPA’s Outstanding Scientific Achievement Award 2023. She is a widely published author.

Dr Aoife Twohig is a consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist practicing primarily in CHI at Temple Street. She is child psychiatrist and psychotherapist at National Children's Research Centre, CHI Crumlin. She has had a special interest in attachment and infant mental health and has completed doctoral research within the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of the National Maternity Hospital. Her interest lies in supporting early parent-infant relationships and attachment in the perinatal period. In Crumlin, Aoife was the Clinical Director of the child sexual abuse assessment and therapy service.

Dr Lina Krakau is post-doctoral researcher at the Universities of Wuppertal and Mainz in Germany. She was a doctoral researcher on the LAC depression study. Lina has been involved in the writing of a number of multi-authored published peer-reviewed articles reporting many of the findings of the LAC study. Her research explores the profound influence of (early) interpersonal experiences on self–other perception, which she links with psychodynamic outcome research. She initially studied clinical psychology at Goethe University Frankfurt, where her work at the Sigmund Freud Institute sparked a deep interest in psychoanalysis. The experiences gained during that time, alongside the findings of her research work, led her to begin a psychoanalytic training.

Jane G. Tillman, PhD, ABPP, as the Evelyn Stefansson Nef Director of the Erikson Institute, works to develop existing and new programs to support psychoanalytic education, training, scholarship, research, interdisciplinary studies, and advocacy that contribute to knowledge about human development across the lifecycle. Developing Riggs’ institutional archives and specialty library to contribute to scholarly research is also a significant aspect of the Erikson Institute. Applying the clinical learning available at the Austen Riggs Center to larger social contexts and problems in order to contribute to local community and beyond by improving access to mental health care, addressing issues of stigma, collaborative care, and suicide prevention are all aspects of the Erikson Institute. As a psychotherapist and psychoanalyst, Dr Tillman treats patients at the Austen Riggs Center. And, as a researcher, she is interested in suicide prevention and post-vention. Dr Tillman presents her scholarship and research in international forums including seminars, lectures, conferences, and publications.

Dr Eve Watson, PhD, is involved in psychoanalytic practice, training, education, and research. She is a co-director of a busy Dublin city centre practice, and has published over thirty essays on psychoanalysis, sexuality, film, culture, and literature. Her co-edited books are Clinical Encounters in Sexuality: Psychoanalytic Practice and Queer Theory (2017, Punctum), Critical Essays on the Drive: Lacanian Theory and Practice (Routledge, 2024), and another collection, Freud’s Principal Case Studies Revisited: Freudian-Lacanian Psychoanalysts Reconsider the Legacy (Routledge, 2025). She is the academic director of the Freud Lacan institute (FLi), and was the Editor of Lacunae, the International Journal for Lacanian Psychoanalysis from 2016-2024. She is a member of the Editorial Boards of Lacunae, The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, and the European Journal of Qualitative Research in Psychotherapy. In 2022, she was the Erik Erikson Scholar-in-Residence at the Austen Riggs Centre in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

Dr Noreen Giffney is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist and the Joint Editor-in-Chief (with Emmanuelle Smith) of New Associations psychoanalytic magazine (British Psychoanalytic Council). She is the author of the book, The Culture-Breast in Psychoanalysis: Cultural Experiences and the Clinic (Routledge 2021), and the author and/or editor of additional articles and books on psychoanalysis, psychosocial studies, and the arts, culture and mental health. She is a member of the development team (led by Jill Bennett) for World Comes Alive (fEEL Lab 2025), the first VR experience underpinned by psychoanalytic thinking. Noreen is currently making a short, animated film (with illustrator, Allen Fatimaharan) about the psychological nourishment provided by cultural objects. She lectures and conducts research at Ulster University, Belfast.

Dr John O’Connor is Course Director of the MPhil in Psychoanalytic Studies, and Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology at Trinity College Dublin. He is a member of the Board of the Irish Council for Psychotherapy. By training he is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalytic psychotherapist and has worked in a wide variety of public services and privately. He is both a clinical and academic supervisor, and with particular interests in processes of training, the psychodynamics of commonly diagnosed states, the intersection between individual and cultural pressures, and the development of contexts for the handling of suffering. He has published widely and is dedicated to the bridging between psychoanalytic and adjacent and wider communities.

Dr Pauline Twomey has had many years of clinical experience in Australia and Ireland, and as Consultant Psychiatrist ran a specialist national female psychiatric intensive care service in a publicly funded psychiatric hospital in Ireland. She was the Chairperson of the Human Rights and Ethics Committee of the College of Psychiatrists of Ireland and a member of Council, inputting into the College curriculum. Dr Twomey was tutor for 9 years. She has a long-standing interest in psychoanalysis and a clinical background in Freudian–Lacanian psychoanalysis, as well as other forms of psychotherapy.

EVENT COORDINATORS

Helena Texier (see above)

Therese Maguire is a practising psychoanalytic psychotherapist, social care programme evaluator, and provider of training, education and consultancy services to NGOs in Ireland. She is an accredited member of the Irish Council for Psychotherapy and a Reg Pract member of APPI. She was Vice Chair of The Association of Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy in Ireland, APPI, and was Chair of its Education Committee. She is Clinic Director at The Psychotherapy Clinic based in North Wicklow. Therese is Director of the Freud Lacan Institute.

HARPISTS: Ellie and Katie O’Neill are Irish traditional harpists from Kilmacanogue, Co. Wicklow. They are 13 year old twins who have been studying the harp under the tutelage of Rachel Duffy since 2022. They have performed at an array of festivals and events including the Wicklow and Leinster Fleadh Cheoil, the Tuamgraney Harp Festival and An Chúirt Chruitireachta International Harp Festival 2025. They are members of Bray Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann and are fortunate to have recently joined the Bray Harp Ensemble where they performed with this group at the beautiful venue of Russborough House. We are delighted to have them join us for our symposium.

We show our strong commitment to interdisciplinary dialogues with other voices by devising unique themed events. We strive to locate these events in a setting which brings psychoanalysis out of itself and into contact with adjacent fields, choosing settings to stage a singular encounter which may nurture or seed collaborative interdisciplinary thought-spaces, vital to the shared future unfolding before us.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

MoLI – Museum of Literature Ireland, 86 Saint Stephen's Green, Dublin, Ireland