In this symposium, the FREEPSY collective explores crisis, critique and creativity in relation to psychoanalytic free clinics. We discuss the reconfigurations of the psychoanalytic frame related to racist and heteropatriarchal societal crises. We imagine a post-human feminist intervention in the clinical realm, while exploring the possibility of a drive to care. Finally, in a collective presentation, we talk to the audience about a recent experience of constructing and mobilising a global Free Clinics Network. In this collective conversation, we aim to open up a futurity pertaining to a new ‘clinical ecology’, which puts suffering at the centre of a reconfigured social bond.
We look at the intersection between the enlivened activity of free psychoanalysis clinics around the world and the work of grassroot movements. Through an analysis of original archival material, we discuss the struggles encountered by psychoanalytic collectives in asserting and organising their social mission, in the 1930s, in a time of unfreedom and oppression. Focusing on Berlin and Budapest, we explore the themes such as trauma, persecution, displacement, material and emotional deprivation.
Crisis, Solidarity and Psychoanalysis-to-Come.
Chair: Raluca Soreanu
Opportunities in Crisis: The Free Clinics Movement and the Reimagining of Psychoanalytic Practice. Lizaveta van Munsteren
Crises between Critique and Creativity: A Post-human Feminist Intervention. Ana Minozzo
Psychoanalytic Ecologies: A Network Exercise for a Psychoanalysis-to-Come. Raluca Soreanu, Ana Minozzo, Ana Tomcic, Lizaveta van Munsteren, Julianna Pusztai
Solidarity: A Psychoanalytic Stretch. Julianna Pusztai
War and the Bonds that Hold: Nelly Wolffheim and Edith Gyömrői. Ana Tomcic
9-10 June 2025, St Mary’s University, Twickenham, London TW1 4SX
