Maudsley Lectures in Psychoanalysis | A Love that Kills - Anna Motz

Maudsley Lectures in Psychoanalysis | Autumn 2024

Violence in Mind: Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Forensic Work

A Love that Kills

Anna Motz

Monday 14th October 2024

7:30pm - 9:00pm (BST)

Hybrid

In-person at 10 Windsor Walk and Online via Zoom.

Recording available for 1 week following the event for registered participants.

In her talk, Anna Motz describes how buried trauma can resurface through violent enactments, using anonymised clinical material to illustrate the unconscious forces and conflicts that create acts of serious harm in women, to the self and to others, with emphasis on the therapeutic processes that can lead to understanding and rehabilitation in some cases. She describes the role of forensic psychotherapy, both within individual relationships and within systems and how psychoanalytic understanding can help to make sense of even the most unimaginable of crimes. Motz focusses on the unique manifestation of female violence and perversion and how it is often denied or misconstrued, as idealisations and denigrations of motherhood, first described by Estela Welldon, continue to influence societal perceptions.

Dr Anna Motz is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist, a forensic psychotherapist and a consultant clinical and forensic psychologist, working for CNWL NHS Trust within HMP Bronzefield. She is the former President of the International Society for Forensic Psychotherapy and a member of the Ministry of Justices Expert Group for Female Offenders, as well as the author of several books including Invisible Trauma: Women, Difference and the Criminal Justice System co-written with Maxine Dennis and Anne Aiyegbusi, The Psychology of Female Violence: Crimes Against the Body and her most recent book, A Love that Kills: Stories of Female Violence and Forensic Psychotherapy. She works with criminalised women in long term psychotherapy and with the staff teams within the prison to enable the women understand their conscious and unconscious motivations and to gain insight and control over dangerous feelings and impulses. Her recent book has been reviewed in The New Yorker and she has written on female violence for The Wall Street Journal.

Female violence and perversion is often denied or misconstrued, as idealisations and denigrations of motherhood and womanhood shape societal perceptions. In her talk Motz describes how buried trauma can resurface through violent enactments by women, using anonymised clinical material to illustrate the unconscious forces and conflicts to the self and to other, including their children. She traces the unconscious conflicts and wishes that generate such crimes. Despite the horror of these acts of violence Motz emphasizes the therapeutic processes that can leads to understanding and rehabilitation, even in cases where women have killed those they love most. She describes the role of forensic psychotherapy, both within individual relationships and within systems and how psychoanalytic understanding can make sense of even the most unimaginable of crimes.

Acts of violence have long been a source of fascination and bewilderment, not least because the shock of their impact invites a particular type of thinking, or non-thinking. When confronted with unthinkable, or apparently mindless, acts, we are all vulnerable to locating the source of violence in the 'offender', and not seeing the links with the violence, both interpersonal and structural, in our families, communities and societies. This lecture series will offer participants an opportunity to engage with a range of contemporary psychoanalytic perspectives on understanding and thinking about different types of violence, in minds and deeds. There will be a combination of theory and clinical presentations. This series has relevance for those who are experienced and those who are new to this area. 

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

Concession tickets are available, for students, BPAS candidates and NHS trainees and nurses. Please email outreach@iopa.org.uk 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.