Sigmund Freud died in the autumn of 1939, literally eighty years before the outbreak of the current coronavirus pandemic.
Although Freud did not have to navigate this chilling global crisis, he did survive the First World War, the so-called Spanish Flu, and, also, the deadly Nazi occupation of Austria. In consequence, he might well have had some important lessons to bequeath to us on how we might remain robust during these terrifying times.
In this special webinar, Professor Brett Kahr, a long-standing Trustee of Freud Museum London and author of several books on the father of psychoanalysis, will explore how Freud handled his own life-threatening challenges, how he remained creative and productive throughout illness and war, and how he forged a community of supporters who protected and enriched him and whom he supported likewise. Professor Kahr will also consider how Freud’s theories, especially those of the early 1920s – a full century ago – can help us to understand the widespread prevalence of denial and disavowal of the traumatic reality of our present-day lives.
Speaker: Professor Brett Kahr is Senior Fellow at the Tavistock Institute of Medical Psychology in London, as well as Visiting Professor of Psychoanalysis and Mental Health in the Regent’s School of Psychotherapy and Psychology at Regent’s University London. He also holds the post of Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Media and Communication at Bournemouth University, linked to the Centre for the Study of Conflict, Emotion and Social Justice. Kahr first worked at the Freud Museum back in 1986, and, subsequently, he became one of the museum’s Trustees. His books include Life Lessons from Freud; Coffee with Freud; and, most recently, Dangerous Lunatics: Trauma, Criminality, and Forensic Psychotherapy (newly released by Confer Books). He is currently completing an intellectual biography of Freud for the “Routledge Historical Biographies” series.
Image: Salvador Dalí, Metamorphosis of Narcissus (detail), 1937
