Free Series: Introductions to Contemporary Psychoanalysis
CPD Credits
1
Event Type
Live Online Event
Location
Zoom & Not Recorded
Time (UK)
6:00 pm - 7:15 pm
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Book Tickets
Free Series: Introductions to Contemporary Psychoanalysis
Thursday, June 18, 2026

Free Series: Introductions to Contemporary Psychoanalysis

Donald Meltzer

With Meg Harris Williams & Aner Govrin (Chair)

We are delighted to offer an in-depth conversation with Meg Harris Williams and Aner Govrin, editor of the Routledge Introduction to Contemporary Psychoanalysis series, on Meg's book for the series Donald Meltzer: A contemporary Introduction.

Aner invites Meg to describe Meltzer’s contribution to the understanding of borderline and psychotic states, focusing in particular on his concept of the Claustrum. This will be seen in the context of his expanded view of the Kleinian model of the mind to incorporate both Bion’s ideas, and the further clinical understanding of the variety of modes of identification, including his own formulation of adhesive identification as an alternative narcissistic mode to projective identification.

Meltzer’s view of the vicissitudes of personality development is characterised by both its clinical depth and its wider association with literature and philosophy, particularly the philosophy of symbol-formation. As a result of not only his own experience with children in analysis, but also of intensive work with people doing infant observation, via the method of Esther Bick, he was able to expand our view of primitive personality development and its persistence in the adult mind in both its detrimental and its enriching capacities, and to give clinical substance to many of Bion’s more abstract formulations.

The increased complexity of the psychoanalytic model of the mind enables a more flexible approach to clinical practice and the analytic situation, which is associated with Meltzer’s espousal of the Kleinian-based concept of the internal combined object and its central function in thinking and symbol formation, together with the many ways this may be either structurally inadequate, or avoided owing to infantile or destructive aspects of the personality. 

This discussion promises to engage clinicians, scholars, and readers interested in how contemporary psychoanalysis continues to evolve in its understanding of human relationships.

Please note a recording is not included when signing up.

Programme

18.00 Meg Harris Williams and Aner Govrin in Conversation

Join our speakers for an open, unstructured conversation. Rather than a formal presentation, this session will be guided by curiosity, spontaneity, and dialogue. Aner will facilitate the discussion, but the direction will be shaped by the flow of ideas and questions as they arise.

Participants are warmly encouraged to engage throughout via the Q&A function, sharing reflections, asking questions, and contributing to the evolving conversation. This is a space to listen, think aloud, and participate in an active exchange of perspectives.

19.15 End

Aner Govrin

Aner Govrin is a psychoanalyst, philosopher and clinical psychologist based in Tel Aviv, Israel. He is the director of the doctoral track, 'Psychoanalysis and Hermeneutics', at Bar-Ilan University and is a member of Tel Aviv Institute for Contemporary Psychoanalysis. He is the series editor of the Routledge Introductions to Contemporary Psychoanalysis book series, author of How Philosophy Changed Psychoanalysis (2024), Ethics and Attachment (2018), Conservative and Radical Perspectives on Psychoanalytic Knowledge: The Fascinated and the Disenchanted (2015), and Conversations with Michael Eigen (2003). He is also editor of The Routledge International Handbook of Psychoanalysis and Philosophy (2024) and Innovations in Psychoanalysis (2019). His two forthcoming book, Interpretation - A Contemporary Intrioduction and The Craft of the Psychodynamic Case Study: A Practical Guide, will be published by Routledge.

Meg Harris Williams

Meg Harris Williams is a writer and lecturer on literature and psychoanalysis and also a visual artist.She teaches internationally and is editor of The Harris Meltzer Trust. Her books and papers have been translated into many languages and include: Inspiration in Milton and Keats (1982), A Strange Way of Killing: Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights(1987), The Apprehension of Beauty (with Donald Meltzer; 1988), The Chamber of Maiden Thought (with Margot Waddell; 1991), Hamlet in Analysis (1997), The Vale of Soulmaking (2005), The Aesthetic Development (2010), Bion’s Dream (2010), The Becoming Room: Filming Bion’s Memoir of the Future (2015), The Art of Personality in Literature and Psychoanalysis (2017), Dream Sequences in Shakespeare (2021), and Donald Meltzer: A Contemporary Introduction (2021). Her forthcoming book is Our Eternal Home: Bion’s Idea of the Self. Website: www.artlit.info.

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