The Unconscious with Dr David Bell

Basic concepts lecture:

 The Unconscious
Speaker: Dr David Bell

Tuesday 11th February 2025
7.30pm - 9.00pm (GMT)

Delivered online only
This event will be recorded and available for 1 week.

This lecture will start with a consideration of what kind of thing psychoanalysis is moving on to situate Freuds discovery of the unconscious within its immediate historical context (19th century Vienna). We will then explore the nature of unconscious mental life as manifest in dreams, symptoms and aspects of everyday life.

Dr David Bell is a Training and Supervising psychoanalyst of the British Psychoanalytical Society (a former President) and just stood down from  chair of its  Applied Section ( Psychoanalytic Interdisciplinary Studies). He retired in 2021 from his consultant psychiatrist post at the Tavistock, where he developed and led the 'Fitzjohns Unit', a specialist service for more complex/severe adult cases. 

He lectures and publishes on psychoanalytic theory (the work of Freud, Klein and Bion). Throughout his career he has been deeply involved in interdisciplinary studies- psychoanalysis and literature, philosophy and socio-political theory (he set up and chaired, for about 15 years, a Philosophy and Psychoanalysis Study Group). He currently delivers regular online courses on The Development of Psychoanalysis/ Psychoanalysis and Culture.