FLi is delighted to host a much-needed INTERDISCIPLINARY DIALOGUE of psychoanalysis with psychiatry, psychology and the psychotherapies looking at recent evidence supporting the effectiveness of psychoanalytic therapy (PAT) in the treatment of chronically depressed adults who have experienced adverse childhood events.
Recent comprehensive research shows that people who suffer from ongoing chronic depression as a result of adverse childhood experiences are shown to have better outcomes, including lasting structural change when they undergo frequent, long-term psychotherapy. https://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.2024.112 open access
THIS SYMPOSIUM focuses on the implementation, findings and implications of this major research. Together we will give psychoanalysts, psychologists, psychiatrists, psychotherapists and other stakeholders in mental health services provision, the chance to hear about the research from Dr Lina Krakau, one of the lead authors reporting the work, and to ask questions, to discuss and to get to grips with the significance of the findings, and to reflect on what future actions might be indicated. We will be joined also by Prof. Marianne Leuzinger-Bohleber and Dr Jane G. Tillman, as well as a host of discussants and respondents.
This event will be of interest to the fields of psychoanalysis, psychiatry, psychology, psychotherapy, general medical practice, and to stakeholders in mental health services provision.
Helena Texier is a director of the Freud Lacan institute, FLi. She has been a working psychoanalytic practitioner for over 30 years and is clinical director of a group private practice in Dublin, Ireland. She has been involved in post-graduate professional training and has taught in TCD, and at SVUH UCD clinical training programme at Masters’ level. She was Chair of the Association for Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy in Ireland and is a board member of the Psychoanalytic Section of the Irish Council for Psychotherapy. Editor of a Lacanian psychoanalytic journal for a decade, she recently co-edited with Eve Watson Freud’s Principal Case Studies Revisited: Freudian-Lacanian Psychoanalysts Reconsider the Legacy, Routledge, 2025. Her research interest is in the relationship – and its effects – of psychoanalysts to science and research.
Marianne Leuzinger-Bohleber, MD Dr Phil. was professor of psychoanalysis at the University of Kassel and director of the Sigmund Freud Institute, in Frankfurt. She is currently research fellow at the University of Medicine Mainz and is training analyst of the German Psychoanalytical Association. She was chair of the Research Board of the IPA (2010-2021) and is a current member and former chair of the IPA Subcommittee for Migration and Refugees. She received the Mary Sigourney Award in 2016, the Haskell Norman Prize for Excellence in Psychoanalysis in 2017, the Robert S. Wallerstein Fellowship (2022-2027) and the IPA’s Outstanding Scientific Achievement Award 2023. She is a widely published author.
Ali Curran is an organisational and management consultant based in Dublin. As an organisational consultant her work with teams and wider systems is focused on using process, reflective practice and Balint group methodologies. She is psycho-dynamically informed coach and role consultant.
Dr Lina Krakau is post-doctoral researcher at the Universities of Wuppertal and Mainz in Germany. She was a doctoral researcher on the LAC depression study. Lina has been involved in the writing of a number of multi-authored published peer-reviewed articles reporting many of the findings of the LAC study. Her research explores the profound influence of (early) interpersonal experiences on self–other perception, which she links with psychodynamic outcome research. She initially studied clinical psychology at Goethe University Frankfurt, where her work at the Sigmund Freud Institute sparked a deep interest in psychoanalysis. The experiences gained during that time, alongside the findings of her research work, led her to begin a psychoanalytic training.
Jane G. Tillman, PhD, ABPP, as the Evelyn Stefansson Nef Director of the Erikson Institute, works to develop existing and new programs to support psychoanalytic education, training, scholarship, research, interdisciplinary studies, and advocacy that contribute to knowledge about human development across the lifecycle. Developing Riggs’ institutional archives and specialty library to contribute to scholarly research is also a significant aspect of the Erikson Institute. Applying the clinical learning available at the Austen Riggs Center to larger social contexts and problems in order to contribute to local community and beyond by improving access to mental health care, addressing issues of stigma, collaborative care, and suicide prevention are all aspects of the Erikson Institute. As a psychotherapist and psychoanalyst, Dr Tillman treats patients at the Austen Riggs Center. And, as a researcher, she is interested in suicide prevention and post-vention. Dr Tillman presents her scholarship and research in international forums including seminars, lectures, conferences, and publications.
Dr Eve Watson, PhD, is involved in psychoanalytic practice, training, education, and research. She is a co-director of a busy Dublin city centre practice, and has published over thirty essays on psychoanalysis, sexuality, film, culture, and literature. Her co-edited books are Clinical Encounters in Sexuality: Psychoanalytic Practice and Queer Theory (2017, Punctum), Critical Essays on the Drive: Lacanian Theory and Practice (Routledge, 2024), and another collection, Freud’s Principal Case Studies Revisited: Freudian-Lacanian Psychoanalysts Reconsider the Legacy (Routledge, 2025). She is the academic director of the Freud Lacan institute (FLi), and was the Editor of Lacunae, the International Journal for Lacanian Psychoanalysis from 2016-2024. She is a member of the Editorial Boards of Lacunae, The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, and the European Journal of Qualitative Research in Psychotherapy. In 2022, she was the Erik Erikson Scholar-in-Residence at the Austen Riggs Centre in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.
Dr Noreen Giffney is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist and the Joint Editor-in-Chief (with Emmanuelle Smith) of New Associations psychoanalytic magazine (British Psychoanalytic Council). She is the author of the book, The Culture-Breast in Psychoanalysis: Cultural Experiences and the Clinic (Routledge 2021), and the author and/or editor of additional articles and books on psychoanalysis, psychosocial studies, and the arts, culture and mental health. She is a member of the development team (led by Jill Bennett) for World Comes Alive (fEEL Lab 2025), the first VR experience underpinned by psychoanalytic thinking. Noreen is currently making a short, animated film (with illustrator, Allen Fatimaharan) about the psychological nourishment provided by cultural objects. She lectures and conducts research at Ulster University, Belfast.
Dr John O’Connor is Course Director of the MPhil in Psychoanalytic Studies, and Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology at Trinity College Dublin. He is a member of the Board of the Irish Council for Psychotherapy. By training he is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalytic psychotherapist and has worked in a wide variety of public services and privately. He is both a clinical and academic supervisor, and with particular interests in processes of training, the psychodynamics of commonly diagnosed states, the intersection between individual and cultural pressures, and the development of contexts for the handling of suffering. He has published widely and is dedicated to the bridging between psychoanalytic and adjacent and wider communities.