About this Event
What if psychoanalysis is not only a clinical method, but part of a much older inheritance?
This talk considers psychoanalysis within a deeply rooted Jewish interpretive tradition, in which meaning is made over time and survival depends upon the capacity to read, question, and reinterpret. Long before the consulting room, Jewish culture cultivated a rigorous and generative practice of interpretation: one that transformed text into dialogue, memory into method, and uncertainty into continuity.
Tracing a line from ancient Jewish hermeneutic practices to the emergence of psychoanalysis, the talk explores an often unspoken affinity between them: how a diasporic culture, shaped by rupture and displacement, developed modes of survival through language, argument, and the continual reworking of meaning, and how these same structures quietly reappear within the psychoanalytic encounter. Moving between past and present, tradition and theory, it invites us to consider psychoanalysis not as an isolated invention, but as part of a longer cultural lineage: interpretation as a practice of understanding, creativity, endurance, and psychic survival.
Over the course of the event, each speaker will deliver an approximately 5 minute response followed by a 30 minute panel discussion with the remaining half-an-hour for audience questions.
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Speakers:
Stephen Frosh is Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Birkbeck, University of London, where he was Pro-Vice-Master and also founding Head of the Department of Psychosocial Studies. He is the author of over twenty books and many papers on psychosocial studies and psychoanalysis. He is also co-editor of the Palgrave Handbook of Psychosocial Studies (2024) and of the Routledge International Handbook of Psychoanalysis and Jewish Studies (2025).
Dr Verity Alexis is a Chartered Child, Community and Educational Psychologist, psychotherapist, teacher, lecturer, and writer whose work draws on psychoanalytic and attachment-based traditions to explore questions of development, meaning, and human experience across clinical, educational, and cultural contexts. She works clinically with children, adolescents, adults, and families, and her practice is grounded in psychodynamic, psychoanalytic, systemic, and relational approaches to psychological, social, and emotional development.
Clare Hedwat is a UKCP accredited psychoanalytic psychotherapist in private practise, writer and senior government advisor. She has worked extensively in international development as Senior Director for Strategic Planning for UJA Federation of New York and has particular interest in gender and Jewish community issues, writing for publications including Ha'aretz, EJewish Philanthropy and the London Jewish News.
Liat Rosenthal is Director of Culture, Education and Communities for the Board of Deputies for British Jews.
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Tickets: £25
Freud Museum Members and Patrons receive 20% off the standard ticket price on all events, courses, conferences and On Demand programming.
A limited number of £10 bursary tickets will be available for those unable to pay the full amount. Please email [email protected] to apply for a bursary.
The purpose of this event is to raise funds for the Freud Museum London, which receives no regular Government income. We are grateful to you for supporting our independent museum as generously as possible.
The event will be held on the first floor of the Museum during regular opening hours. Unfortunately the Freud Museum does not have step-free access at this time. Advance booking is highly recommended as capacity is limited.
Photography courtesy of Jewish Culture Month, photo credit Tim Cole
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Freud Museum London, 20 Maresfield Gardens, London, United Kingdom
GBP 26.94
