Maudsley Arts and Psychoanalysis | The Well Gardened Mind - Dr Sue Stuart-Smith

Maudsley Lectures in Psychoanalysis | Arts and Psychoanalysis

The Well Gardened Mind

Dr Sue Stuart-Smith

29th April 2024

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

Hybrid

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

Recording available for 1 week.

The speakers will be in dialogue with Psychoanalyst Dr Anne Patterson.

Dr Sue Stuart-Smith is a psychiatrist and psychotherapist who graduated in English literature at Cambridge University before going on to train as a doctor. She worked in the National Health Service for many years, becoming the lead clinician for psychotherapy in Hertfordshire. She currently works for DocHealth, a not-for-profit service that helps doctors suffering from stress and burnout. She is married to Tom Stuart-Smith, the celebrated garden designer, and, over thirty years together, they have created the Barn Garden in Hertfordshire.  More recently, they have launched a not-for-profit gardening and health initiative called the Serge Hill Project.   Her book, The Well Gardened Mind, was published in 2020 and became a Sunday Times bestseller and a Times and Sunday Times book of the year. It has since been translated into eighteen languages.

Summary

The garden is often seen as a refuge, a place to forget worldly cares, removed from the “real” life that lies outside. But when we get our hands in the earth we connect with the cycle of life in nature through which destruction and decay are followed by regrowth and renewal. Drawing on her grandfather’s return from the First World War, Sigmund Freud’s obsession with flowers and interviews with people from gardening projects in prisons, hospitals and in the community, Sue will explore how gardening can answer to deep existential needs and discuss findings from recent research showing that connecting to nature can alleviate symptoms of anxiety, stress and depression.

From Freud’s thinking on the sublimation of libido and his later theorisation of the Life and Death Drives, to Klein’s work on reparation and the recovery of the good object and Winnicott’s ideas of creative living, psychoanalysis has always been interested in creativity. 
 

In the fourth Maudsley summer series on arts and psychoanalysis, we continue to explore this theme of creativity between internal and external worlds in dialogue with artists from a range of different perspectives: from the natural to the built world and ceramics to literature and theatre.

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.