Psychosis – to what use can we put this loaded signifier? Lacanian analysis starts by binning the notion of psychosis as disorder or illness, reframing it as a commonplace subjective position in language. This talk explores how analytic treatment can offer a way beyond the deadlock of medication and risk management that defines current mental health services.

Often as not psychosis is a low-key thing, discerned through attentive listening over time. But what does one listen out for? And how does an idea of diagnosis determine the direction of the treatment? The speaker will use clinical material to elaborate a Lacanian approach to working with psychosis.

Biography: Conor McCormack is a Lacanian psychoanalyst working in private practice in Bristol, and a member of the Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research (CFAR). He has extensive experience working as a psychotherapist for the NHS.

Conor also teaches and writes. Prior to this, he made films. ‘In the Real’, an observational documentary he made in collaboration with the Bristol Hearing Voices Network – a self-help group for people who hear voices and have other unusual experiences – is available to watch here: https://www.bhvn.co.uk/in-the-real