About this event

Dates: Mondays 6:30pm to 8pm on 26th January, 2nd, 9th and 23rd February, and 2nd, 9th, 16th and 23rd March 2026.

This series is hybrid, participants are welcome to join in person or online.

This eight-part series will explore the nature of human destructiveness and its clinical manifestations in suicide and self-harm. Tracing the evolution of psychoanalytic thought - from Freud to contemporary psychoanalytic perspectives - it will address how acts of self-destruction can communicate psychological disturbance and pain.

Leading psychoanalytic clinicians will present current thinking and practice, offering insights drawn from clinical work, theory and research. Through dialogue and case discussion participants will be invited to consider destructiveness within the self, the patient, the therapeutic relationship, and society.

The series aims to deepen participant’s understanding of work with suicidal states of mind; to explore how to understand the emotional impact on clinicians in order to sustain their compassion towards those who self-harm or threaten suicide.

Seminar 1: Eight 'Truths About Suicide' (Rachel Gibbons)

Seminar 2: Suicide Bereavement, Blame, and the Risk to Clinicians (Rachel Gibbons)

Seminar 3: The Psychodynamics of the Pathway to Suicide (Rachel Gibbons)

Seminar 4: The Psychodynamics of Self Harm (Rachel Gibbons)

Seminar 5: Who is Killing What or Whom? Some Notes on the Internal Phenomenoly of Suicide (David Bell)

Seminar 6: Title TBC (Emma Hotopf)

Seminar 7: Title TBC (Will Crouch & Stephen Briggs)

Seminar 8: Title TBC (Jo O'Reilly)

© Image: Matthew Kolakowski, 'Storm Inside' 2010

REFUND POLICY: Tickets are fully refundable until 14 days before the first lecture, after which time no refunds will be issued.

Concession tickets are available, for students, BPAS candidates and NHS trainees and nurses. Please email [email protected] if you are unsure if you qualify for a concession ticket.

Views and opinions expressed by speakers are their own and do not represent the views or opinions of the Institute, event organisers or other speakers. We expect delegates to respect the confidentiality of clinical material discussed in our events. The content must not be recorded, conveyed or disseminated in any format and participants must not share access to the event with non-registered participants.

Event prices