Playful States of Mind

Mon Dec 19 2022 at 09:45 am to 05:00 pm

Gordon Square | London

The Association for Psychosocial Studies
Publisher/HostThe Association for Psychosocial Studies
Playful States of Mind
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This experiential event explores the ideas of play and playfulness from psychosocial and psychoanalytic perspectives.
About this Event
Playful States of Mind
Organisers: Lynn Froggett, Noreen Giffney and Candida Yates

What do the terms ‘play’, ‘playing’ and ‘playfulness’ mean in different contexts? How might we understand play as both a doing and a being; an activity and a state of mind? In what ways might play be related to creativity and destructiveness? What kinds of feelings might be enacted, evoked or contained while engaging in moments of play? How do we play and what might we be communicating to ourselves and others, consciously and unconsciously, in our play and in the ways in which we play? Why is a capacity for play so important for our mental health and general wellbeing? How might psychoanalysis and psychosocial studies help us to reflect on our experiences of play? These questions will frame our event.

This event will offer a series of immersive experiences centred around play, to help us to reflect on and talk about our individual and collective encounters with play. The emphasis will be on experience, reflection and conversation. Participants are encouraged to wear comfortable clothing and be prepared for an encounter with the unknown.

This event will appeal to anyone interested in play, imagination and creativity. It will be of particular interest to psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, psychologists, counsellors, group analysts, play therapists, creative arts therapists, social workers and social care workers, mental health workers, youth workers, artists, performers and curators, as well as academic researchers and students in the fields of psychosocial studies, cultural studies, and in the arts, humanities and social sciences more broadly.

Places are limited so early registration is advised. Participants are requested to register only if they are available to attend the whole day, as this event makes use of a group experience.

Full Details -

Reading Material

We will discuss the following two pieces in the afternoon, so please read them in advance and bring along copies with you:

• Patricia Townsend, ‘Play and Playing’ in Creative States of Mind Psychoanalysis and the Artist’s Process (London and New York: Routledge 2019), pp. 59-67.

• Lynn Froggett, ‘Deep Play and Simulation in Urban Space: Of Art and Video-Games’ in Deep Play and Simulation in Urban Space: Of Art and Video-Games (London: British Council 2018), pp. 16-35.

Conveners

Dr Noreen Giffney is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist and a psychosocial theorist. 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 a number of articles and books on psychoanalysis, critical theory, and gender and sexuality studies. She is particularly interested in the emotional and unconscious use we make of cultural objects and experiences (film, art, literature, music); the writings of the psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion; and the clinical impact of psychosocial factors on the transference-countertransference dynamic. Noreen is the Director of ‘Psychoanalysis +’, an international, interdisciplinary initiative that brings together clinical, academic and artistic approaches to, and applications of, psychoanalysis. She teaches and researches psychoanalysis and psychosocial studies at Ulster University in Belfast. She is a Founding Scholar of the British Psychoanalytic Council (BPC), a member of the Editorial Team for the BPC’s New Associations magazine, and a Contributing Editor for the journal, Studies in Gender and Sexuality (Routledge).

W: https://www.ulster.ac.uk/staff/n-giffney

E: [email protected]

Professor Lynn Froggett is Professor of Psychosocial Welfare in the Lancashire Institute of Citizenship, Society and Change at the University of Central Lancashire. She moved to her current academic post after a career in social work practice and management and social policy, but as a researcher gradually reverted to earlier interests in applied arts and humanities. Over the last twenty years she has led a succession of research programmes concerned with the ‘uses’ of art and the nature of aesthetic experience in settings as diverse as health, social care, criminal justice, education, communities and museums. More recently, in ‘Curating Third Space’, she has worked with colleagues in Australia and Singapore on the nature of the knowledge that emerges ‘in-between’ art, science and technology. She specialises in visual and sensory research methods and is commissioning co-editor of a new Policy Press series Advances in Biographical Research At the University of Central Lancashire she is Co-Director of the trans-disciplinary Lancashire Institute for Citizenship, Society and Change. She is a Founding Scholar of the British Psychoanalytic Council (BPC), Fellow of the Academy of Social Science and also Chair of the UK Association for Psychosocial Studies – a field she has worked to develop and promote for many years.

W: https://www.uclan.ac.uk/academics/lynn-froggett E: [email protected]

Tea, Coffee and Lunch

Tea, coffee and a light lunch will be provided. Please let us know if you have any allergies or dietary intolerances.

Sponsors

This event is hosted by the Association for Psychosocial Studies and sponsored by ‘Psychoanalysis +’ and the Birkbeck Centre for Contemporary Theatre.



Event Photos
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Gordon Square, Gordon Square, London, United Kingdom

Tickets

GBP 25.00 to GBP 45.00

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