Ernest Jones Lecture 2025

ERNEST JONES LECTURE 2025
"Navigating Racialised Experience: Reflections on Identity and Resilience"

Wednesday 4th June
8:15pm - 9:45pm (BST)

Speaker: Sonita Alleyne, OBE, FRSA

Chaired by Elizabeth Coates Thümmel, President-Elect of the British Psychoanalytical Society

Hybrid event - Online via Zoom and in person at the Institute of Psychoanalysis

In this year's Ernest Jones Lecture Sonita Alleyne, OBE, will reflect on a lifetime of navigating racialised experience, drawing out implications for identity and resilience. She writes, "I am proud of my life and what I have achieved. However, I was born into a legacy I did not choose - marked by the hue of my skin and the weight it carries in the eyes of others. For fifty-four years, I have walked through spaces shaped by others' assumptions, exclusions, and my own quiet reckonings. I've learned to rise above, but not been untouched. The journey has left its imprint - both as burden and gift.

In this lecture, I offer reflections from a life lived at the intersection of selfhood and society, where race is never incidental, and racism never abstract. I ask: what wisdom can be passed on to those who come next, navigating similar storms with different names? What strength is forged in silence, in resistance, in grace?

And if I were to sit in the therapist's chair, would I find someone able to hold the whole of me? Could they truly hear my story, shaped not only by the personal, but by the deep undercurrents of history, structure, and collective forgetting?

This is not just my story - it is a mirror, a map, and a question that echoes."

Sonita Alleyne is a trailblazer in academia and media, becoming the first black person to lead an Oxbridge College when she became the 41st Master at Jesus College, University of Cambridge in 2019. Her dynamic career began in radio, where she founded and led the production company Somethin' Else for nearly two decades, alongside work as a journalist and broadcaster for outlets such as Greater London Radio and the BBC.

Beyond broadcasting, Sonita has had a significant impact through various roles across the public and private sectors, championing education, employment, and the arts. She has sat on the Boards of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the BBC Trust, the Museum of London, the London Legacy Development Corporation and the Screen Academy Foundation. She also supports several community-focused initiatives. Recognised for contributions with an OBE and multiple honorary fellowships and degrees, Sonita Alleyne continues to influence through leadership, advocacy, and service in education and media. 

Image by Damian Paul Daniel

Elizabeth Coates Thümmel is a Training Analyst and Supervisor of the British Psychoanalytic Society. She is currently President Elect of the Society, becoming President in July. She works in private practice in East London.

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 [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.