41st International Conference on Psychology and the Arts
Amsterdam University College, Science Park 113, 1098 XG Amsterdam, The Netherlands
June 27—June 30, 2025
Sponsored by The PsyArt Foundation and Amsterdam University College
CLICK HERE TO REGISTER FOR THE CONFERENCE
Welcome
We are pleased to announce that the 41st International Conference on Psychology and the Arts will be held at Amsterdam University College (AUC), Science Park 113, 1098 XG Amsterdam, The Netherlands, June 27-June 30, 2025. With a commitment to excellence, diversity and the global perspective, AUC is a modern, public liberal arts college founded in 2009 as a joint initiative of the University of Amsterdam (www.uva.nl ) and VU Amsterdam (www.vu.nl). It is located in the borough of Amsterdam-Oost, in what was formerly the borough of Watergraafsmeer. The conference is co-sponsored and hosted by The PsyArt Foundation (www.psyart.org) and Amsterdam University College (www.auc.nl ).
Plenary Speaker
This year’s plenary speaker will be Gertrudis Van de Vijver. Dr. Van de Vijver is Full Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Moral Sciences at Ghent University. Her research is concerned with the epistemological implications of issues of complexity, self-organization, and teleology in the life sciences, in psychology and in the study of cognition. For this, she developed a transcendental approach to the philosophy of biology, centering on the idea of co-constitution. In addition, she does research on other aspects and implications of transcendental philosophy, and on the connections of psychoanalytic theory with epistemology and philosophy of language. She has been director of the Centre for Critical Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy and Moral Sciences at Ghent University since 2006. Dr. Van de Vijver is also a Lacanian analyst in private practice in the city of Ghent and a member of various scientific associations concerned with philosophy, psychology, and the life sciences.
Overview
The organizers of PsyArt2025 invite 150-word abstracts for papers dealing with any application of psychology–including psychoanalysis, object relations, feminist, Jungian, or Lacanian approaches, cognitive psychology, or neuroscience–to the study of literature, film and visual media, painting, sculpture, music, performance, or the other arts. A maximum of seventy-five papers will be accepted for presentation. We also warmly welcome conferees who do not present papers. The conference is convivial and draws scholars from around the world.
Abstract submissions: deadline for abstract submissions is March 31, 2025.
Registration fees: regular registration fees are due by April 30, 2025. Late registration fees are due by May 15, 2025. Late registration fees will NOT be accepted after May 15, 2025.
Note: the calculated conference registration fees are based on US dollar (USD) to euro (EUR) exchange rates calculated at the time this program was built in November 2024. These exchange rates fluctuate, so the prices will have slight variations at the time of your registration. USD represents the fixed price for registration fees. EUR represents the fixed price for hotel accommodation.
Your registration fee includes the following benefits:
- Opening reception at Vergulden Eenhoorn
- Attendance at all panel sessions, including lunch each full day of the conference
Add-ons (not in your registration fee) include the following:
- Closing banquet at Maris Piper
- 6-Hour Post-conference tour
Refund Policy:
Refunds will be given up to 7 days before the start of the event, i.e., June 22, 2025 (excluding processing fees). After this date, no refunds will be given.
For questions or assistance, please reach out to the following organizers:
Alexander Venetis
Vice President, The PsyArt Foundation: a.venetis@uva.nl.
Marcie Newton
Treasurer, The PsyArt Foundation: mnewton@albany.edu.
Jop de Vos
Office Manager: j.devos@auc.nl. m.schmukalla@essex.ac.uk.
Preliminary Conference Outline
Friday, June 27
Welcome evening reception at Vergulden Eenhoorn, Ringdijk 58, 1097 BB, Amsterdam.
Saturday, June 28
Opening of the conference in the morning; plenary speaker presentation; fellowship presentations; afternoon parallel panel sessions; Directors’ meeting (PsyArt Directors only).
Sunday, June 29
Morning and afternoon parallel sessions.
Monday, June 30
Morning parallel sessions; members’ meeting in the afternoon and group photos; closing banquet in the evening at Maris Piper, Frans Halsstraat 76 HS, 1072 BV, Amsterdam.
Tuesday, July 1
Departure or optional all-day post-conference tour (including a 30-minute boat tour) to Zaanse Schans, Volendam, and Marken.
Papers
Papers should be short, 20 minutes at most. Please observe the time limit. Normal speaking rate is 140 words per minute, and, for clarity, a scholarly presentation should be somewhat slower for the purpose of speaking at the pace of audience comprehension. Please try to limit or avoid jargon. Our standard 20-minute limit allows you to speak about 2400 words or eight to ten pages maximum. An additional ten minutes are allotted for discussion of each paper, usually at the end of the session. The moderator is responsible for keeping speakers to 20 minutes. The moderator speaks last, and it is therefore in his/her/their interest to maintain the schedule.
Note: if there are co-presenters, each presenter must pay the registration fee.
English is the conference language. We recommend that any speakers who are not native speakers of English accompany their talks with a PowerPoint presentation.
Following the conference, please consider submitting your paper to the PsyArt Journal for publication.
Please prepare an abstract, 150 words maximum. The deadline for sending the abstract is March 31, 2025. Send your abstract to PsyArt Vice-President, Alexander Venetis, a.venetis@uva.nl. If your abstract is accepted, an acceptance letter and registration details will follow.
Student Fellowships
The PsyArt Foundation is offering two fellowships:
1. Norman and Jane Holland Travel Fellowship of $500 (USD) / €474 (EUR) for outstanding graduate student papers (prior to completing the Ph.D.). These can be awarded only once per person, but you can apply every year until you win. To be considered for a fellowship, please send your conference abstract by March 1, 2025, to the PsyArt Vice-President, Alexander Venetis, at a.venetis@uva.nl. If your abstract is accepted for the conference, you will be required to provide your conference paper by March 31, 2025, for consideration of the fellowship. Your conference paper will need to be supported by an academic recommendation. A decision will be made by April 15, 2025.
Please note: We do not accept co-written papers for fellowship submissions.
2. In memory of our longtime Vice President, Andrew Gordon, the PsyArt Foundation also offers one Andrew Gordon Fellowship of $500 (USD) / €474 (EUR) for Ph.D. students who are participating at the conference for the first time. A supporting letter from the supervisor is necessary. To be considered for a fellowship, send your conference abstract and supporting letter by March 1, 2025, to the PsyArt Vice-President, Alexander Venetis, at a.venetis@uva.nl. If your abstract is accepted for the conference, you will be required to provide your conference paper by March 31, 2025. A decision will be made by April 15, 2025.
Please note: We do not accept co-written papers for fellowship submissions.
Registration Fees & Payment
The deadline for sending us your title and abstract is March 31, 2025, or when we have 75 accepted abstracts, registration forms, and registration fees, whichever comes sooner. Once you receive notice that your abstract is accepted, you will be notified and can then pay your registration fee to be assured a place at the conference.
For each person attending the conference, please fill out a separate online form and pay the registration fee. Please indicate clearly “No Paper” if that is the case. Otherwise indicate the title and abstract.
For a complete registration, we require three items:
- A completed registration form (see below) including paper title.
- Brief abstract of paper (150 words maximum), if you are giving a paper. These abstracts enable us to decide if your paper is acceptable for the conference and then to place your paper in an appropriate session. We also publish them online.
- A registration fee. See registration payment details below.
Important:
- Ensure your email address is typed correctly to receive a response. If, by April 15, 2025, you are not receiving emails from us, let us know.
- Do not assume that some currency arrangement you made the previous year is still effective.
- Do not leave your registration for someone else to complete unless you are a guest, i.e., a child under 18, friend, or family member attending as a non-presenter.
- Ensure that we have your complete registration (all three items) and your correct email address. Fill out a separate form and pay for each person attending.
To register, click here. U.S. and non-U.S. registrants will be taken to our PsyArt account at Ticketstripe.com. (Note: if you plan to present a paper, the abstract must first be submitted for acceptance to the PsyArt Vice-President, Alexander Venetis, at a.venetis@uva.nl.
The conference registration fee is based on the current 1.06 exchange rate from USD to EUR in November 2024. These exchange rates fluctuate so the Euro price will have slight variations at the time of registration.
- $300 (USD) / €286 (EUR) Early Bird Special (expires on Dec. 31, 2024. Then $325 (USD) / €309 (EUR), plus processing fee. Amount includes reception, conference packet, panel sessions, coffee breaks/breakfast, and lunches . It excludes the optional banquet and post-conference excursion.
- $175 (USD) / €166 (EUR) Early Bird Special (expires on Dec. 31, 2024. Then $200 (USD) / €190 (EUR) for graduate students, plus processing fee. Amount includes reception, conference packet, panel sessions, coffee breaks, and lunches.
- $40 (USD) / €38 (EUR) for guests, plus processing fee, i.e., children under 18 of conferees; and partners, friends, or family wishing to attend the reception only, plus processing fee. Amount includes reception only. Excludes the conference and the activities therein, and it excludes the optional banquet and post-conference excursion.
$25 of the conference registration fee is a non-refundable tax-deductible donation to the PsyArt Foundation, which supports the conference, the journal, and the listserv. If you require a refund (given up to 7 days before the start of the event), it will not include the processing fee or $25 donation.
Late Fees
$50 will be added to late registration fees after April 30, 2025. No payments will be accepted after May 15, 2025.
The registration fee (except for the $25 non-refundable donation) is refundable for any reason (excluding processing fees) until June 22, 2025, but not for any reason thereafter. The $25 donation makes you a member of PsyArt, which also entitles you to attend and to vote at the annual meeting to be held on Monday, June 30, 2025, in Amsterdam. Please do attend and vote.
Should the organizers of the event need to cancel it, we will notify you by May 15, 2025. In this event, you will be refunded your registration fee. Please note that we do not refund flights, hotels, or any other costs incurred.
If you are having problems registering or have any other questions related to registration, please contact our Treasurer, Marcie Newton, at mnewton@albany.edu.
To register, click here. (Note: if you plan to present a paper, an abstract must first be submitted for acceptance to the PsyArt Vice-President, Alexander Venetis, at a.venetis@uva.nl.
Accommodation
If you would like to stay in a hotel that is more central and closer to Amsterdam’s major attractions, for ease of getting to and from Amsterdam University College we recommend staying in accommodation that is within approximately 5-minutes walking distance of Amsterdam Centraal Station. Here are several suggestions:
1. Ibis Amsterdam Centre Hotel (ibiscentre.com-amsterdam.com)
2. NH Collection Amsterdam Barbizon Palace (nh-collection.com/en/hotel/nh-collection-amsterdam-barbizon-palacem)
3. A Train Hotel (atrainhotel.com/)
4. Park Plaza Hotel (parkplazavictoriaamsterdam.com/).
Reach out to Alexander Venetis at a.venetis@uva.nl should you need assistance.
Travel
By plane
Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam is the best airport to fly into for the conference. From the airport, you can easily take a train to Amsterdam Centraal Station. The journey takes approximately 15-20 minutes.
Getting around by train
To get to Amsterdam University College, the easiest way is to take a train from Amsterdam Centraal Station to Amsterdam University College on the NS Sprinter. The journey takes 15 minutes, and trains leave from the station every 20 minutes. (For ease of travel and getting around, you may want to find a hotel near Amsterdam Centraal Station.)
Getting around by tram or bus
The No. 14 tram can also take you from Amsterdam Centraal Station to Amsterdam University College. The journey takes approximately 30 minutes.
If you’re staying in a location near or other than near Amsterdam Centraal Station, Amsterdam University College has comprehensive information whether you’re traveling by train, tram, bus or bicycle. Go to auc.nl/about-auc/contact-us/route-to-auc.html for more details. You can also go to amsterdam-2-go.com and print out a map of the public transport system.
Go to https://www.ov-chipkaart.nl/ for a pay-as-you-go travel card
Taxi information
Taxis: Refer to https://www.amsterdam.nl/en/traffic-transport/taxis/
You can also take an Uber or Bolt (download app)
Reach out to Alexander Venetis at a.venetis@uva.nl if you need assistance.
About Amsterdam
A dynamic city in The Netherlands
The capital of The Netherlands, Amsterdam, is more than 700 years old and is best known for its historical attractions, great art collections, and its exquisite canal system lined with ancient Patrician houses and narrow, bustling streets and an aura of a bygone era.
Extend your stay to explore and experience Amsterdam on your own. Here are just a few ideas (details forthcoming):
Program
Friday, June 27
19:00–21:00: Welcome evening reception at Vergulden Eenhoorn, Ringdijk 58, 1097 BB, Amsterdam
Saturday, June 28 – Monday, June 30: Conference Schedule
Local time is Central European Summer (CES) Time
The plenary lecture and panel sessions take place at Amsterdam University College (AUC), Science Park 113, 1098 XG Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Tel. + 31 (0)20 525 8780 or + 31 (0)20 525 8787 http://www.auc.nl
Saturday, June 28
Opening of the conference in the morning; plenary speaker presentation; morning and afternoon parallel panel sessions; Directors’ meeting (PsyArt Directors only)
9:30 – 10:00: Arrival, Sign-In, and Coffee (Room 0.08—Common Room)
10:00 – 10:15: Opening of the conference and President’s Welcome (Room 0.08)
10:20 – 11:30: Plenary Lecture (Room 0.08):
Dr. Gertrudis van de Vijver
Exciting Objects from Kant to Lacan
11:30 – 12:30: Fellowship Presentations (Room 0.08):
Ráhel Csizmadia (Recipient of the Norman and Jane Holland Travel Fellowship)
Reconstructing the Relationship With One’s Own Gender in the Oeuvre of El Kazovsky
Tímea Deák-Kovács (Recipient of the Andrew Gordon Fellowship)
In Memory of David Lynch: The Experience of an Uncanny Film Therapy Group
12:30 – 13:30: Lunch (Room 0.08)
13:30 – 15:00: Parallel Sessions 1 & 2
Session 1: Lacan on Philosophy, Testimony, and Travel (First floor, Room 1.04):
Robert Silhol
From Descartes to Freud, Thanks to Lacan: A Rereading of the Cogito
Chloe Belgum
Deciphering the Experiencer Phenomenon: Lacan, UAPs, and the Limits of Testimony
Kyeong Hwangbo
The Psychodynamics of Travel: Travel as a Site of Lacanian Integration
Session 2: Psychoanalysis, Creativity, and Affect (First floor, Room 1.05):
Marike Steeman
Understanding Hilma af Klint’s Abstract Work
Paavo Manninen
The Dream of Reading: Displacement of Affect in Reading Fiction
Patricia Townsend
Christopher Bollas and the Creative Process: The Search for the Transformational Object
15:00 – 15:20: Coffee Break (Room 0.08)
15:30 – 16:30: Parallel Sessions 3 & 4
Session 3: Women’s Writing: Female Sexuality and the Maternal Voice (Room 1.04):
Inês Faro
Voice as Witness of a Relationship or the Differential Structure of Writing? The Inscription of the Maternal Voice in Hélène Cixous’ Souffles
Marcie Newton
Who Removed the Key? A Psychoanalytic Examination of the Constraints and Resistances of Female Sexuality in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening and Sigmund Freud’s Dora: An Analysis of a Case of Hysteria
Session 4: Psychoanalysis and Literature: From Molière to Gordimer (Room 1.05):
Clara Burghelea
The Self, The Other, and Hospitality in Nadine Gordimer’s The Pickup
Nóra Sediánszky
Imagining Don Giovanni Beyond Love and Death
16:30 – 17:30: Directors’ Meeting (Room 1.04)
Sunday, June 29
Morning and afternoon parallel sessions
09:30 – 10:00: Morning Coffee (Room 0.08)
10:00 – 11:30: Parallel Sessions 5 & 6
Session 5: Psychology and Film: The Maze, Self-Consciousness, and Ecology (Room 1.04):
Rae Muhlstock
The Mirror and the Hedge Maze: Myth and Madness in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining
Annamária Hódosy
Latent Green Content: Ecological Messages in Popular Films
Samir Dayal
Artificial Intelligence and Self-Consciousness in Some Recent Films
Session 6: Psychoanalysis and Phenomenology: Between Toxicity, Emancipation, and Gender (Room 1.05):
Anna Lilja
Liberating Laughter: Psychoanalysis, Sexuality, and Emancipation in Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying
Zhuoran Zhang
Finding the Gender-Conscious Fuses with Body Image Exploration
Vera Kérchy
Toxic Mothers in Postmodern Fairy Tales
11:30 – 12:30: Parallel Sessions 7 & 8
Session 7: Tales of Womanhood: From Literary Representation to Clinical Reality (Room 1.04):
Julia Frigyes
How Do I Tell You? Psychological Aspects of Fertility Disorders and the Use of Art in Artificial Reproductive Techniques (ART)
Elizabeth Fox
Wrath of Achilles and the Trauma of Others in Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls
Session 8: The Psychology of Traumatic Experiences in Painting, Literature, and the Clinical Setting (Room 1.05:
Terttu Mäkinen
When and Now; Where and Here: Dissociation Rooms, Oedipus Rex, and the Repetitive Fixation on Trauma
Aino-Majha Lahtinen
Childhood and Youth Experiences in Nicolas de Staël’s Development and Life as a Painter
12:30 – 13:30: Lunch (Room 0.08)
13:30 – 15:00: Parallel Sessions 9 & 10
Session 9: Surrealism, The Beat Generation, and Incarceration (Room 1.04):
Adrian Chapman
“Never Too Late to Do Nothing at All”: Allen Ginsberg and Meditation
Joao Da Silva Guerreiro
“Inescapably Relational”: Kinship and Desistance Through Carceral Voices and the Music That Carries Them
Antal Bókay
Hysteria-Criticism and Paranoia-Criticism: Surrealism’s Adventures with Psychoanalysis and the Mysteries of the Soul
Session 10: Art, Sublimation, and Self-Creation: Psychoanalytic Readings (Room 1.05):
Bertalan Balázs Sütő
Unconscious Self-Recognition of the Psyche: Silberer’s Theory of Symbol Formation and Freud’s Notion of Endopsychic Perception in Mythical-Religious Content and in the Creative Artistic Process
Borbála Csete
Carnival and Theatrical Festival as Spaces of Sublimation: A Psychoanalytic Perspective
Petra Egri
Feminine Self-Creation on the Destructive Border of Anatomy and Psychology: Poor Things
15:00 – 15:20: Coffee Break (Room 0.08)
15:30 – 16:30: Parallel Sessions 11 & 12
Session 11: The Psychoanalytic Subject: Symbolic Morality and Real Ethics (Room 1.04):
Maria Granic
Mimetic and Parodic Self-Fashioning in William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair
Alexander Venétis
The Ethics of the Absolute: Why Fail a Real Subject?
Session 12: Jung, Poetry, and Myth (Room 1.05):
Laura Blunsden
“The Infinite I AM”: Applying Jung’s Symbology to Coleridge’s Poetry
Maria S. Röell-Kardaun
Dreadful Dragons and Merry Maidens: On Jung, Heroic Myth, and the Portrayal of the Feminine
Monday, June 30
Morning and afternoon parallel sessions; members’ meeting in the afternoon and group photos; closing banquet in the evening at Maris Piper
09:30 – 10:00: Morning Coffee (Room 0.08)
10:00 – 11:00: Parallel Sessions 13 & 14
Session 13: Color Perception, Psychoanalysis, and Art (Room 1.04):
Liting Song
Neural Mechanisms of Color Perception: An EEG Study on the Impact of Brightness, Saturation, and Hue
Kukka Paavilainen
The Synergy between Freud’s Developing Theory and His Early Writings about Art
Session 14: Sound, Art, and Archives: Philosophical and Psychiatric Views (Room 1.05):
Raluca Soreanu
Multi-Tonal Reading: Breaking Down the Walls of the Asylum
Natalja Chestopalova
Tension, Resonance, Plasticity: Developing Interdisciplinary Methodologies for Projects Weaving Art and Archives Together
11:00 – 12:00: Members’ Meeting
12:00 – 12:30: Group Photos
19:00 – 21:00: Closing Banquet at Maris Piper, Frans Halsstraat 76 HS, 1072 BV, Amsterdam
Tuesday, July 1
Full-day post-conference tour.
Enjoy the picturesque Dutch countryside on a 6-hour day trip by comfortable bus. Encounter the famous windmills, and learn about Dutch traditional crafts. Take advantage of free WiFi on board the bus as you travel. Discover the unique village of Zaanse Schans. Stroll around at your leisure and admire the well-preserved historic windmills and houses. Explore the fishing village of Volendam, visit a cheese shop still making cheese using a traditional Dutch method, and join a demonstration about Volendam cheese. Enjoy lunch at a traditional fish restaurant at your own expense, before exploring more of Volendam. This all-inclusive tour also includes a 30-minute boat ride to Marken, a visit to an operating windmill, and a clog-making demonstration. Arrive at starting address by 8:15 AM: De Ruijterkade 34, 1012 AA, Amsterdam.
Contact Information Sheet
For immediate medical assistance, or in any other emergency situation, please call the emergency line (which applies to the Netherlands and all other countries in the EU). Simply dial: 112
Abstracts
The plenary lecture:
Dr. Gertrudis Van de Vijver—Ghent University, Belgium
Exciting Objects from Kant to Lacan
The development of modern science has profoundly shaped our world and our understanding of humanity. But have we fully grasped its impact? In the 18th century, Kant explored this question by examining the conditions of possibility of scientific objectivity. His system of categories defines a functional space that limits what counts as objectivity. Objects are not immediately available to us as things in themselves. They relentlessly demand to be held in tension within a subjective conditionality. Moreover, objects vibrate along with what is sayable and writable. This link between objectivity and language is also modernity’s critical fault line. In speaking or writing, the subject expresses itself but also disappears into the object it describes. The act of constituting objective reality through speaking and writing creates a paradox: the subject invests itself in language and is structurally lost in what it describes.
Lacan’s psychoanalysis builds on this idea. He argues that the subject of psychoanalysis manifests itself where objectivity reveals itself most stably and reliably. For Lacan, the subject of psychoanalysis is the subject of science. Kant’s view that certain “objects”—the beautiful, the sublime, living beings—are beyond conceptual grasp and, for Lacan, an illusion. This belief pertains to the Imaginary, while science operates within the Symbolic, capable of grasping things as objects within its formalizing, functional framework.
This lecture traces the path from Kant’s conception of the object to Lacan’s theory of the subject. Do living beings truly resist scientific categorization, or is this resistance itself an imaginary construct? What do biology, psychology, and the study of life tell us about our belief in the exceptional nature of living things? And finally, what insights does Lacanian psychoanalysis offer in response to this (scientific) quandary?
__________________________________________________
Parallel panel sessions:
Mrs. Chloe Belgum—San Francisco State University, USA
Deciphering the Experiencer Phenomenon: Lacan, UAPs, and the Limits of Testimony
In the literature on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), the experiencer phenomenon refers to individuals who report direct encounters with UAPs, often describing these as transformative, leading to feelings of love, wholeness, and a deeper connection to the universe. While psychoanalytic readings of this phenomenon are common, a Lacanian perspective remains largely unexplored—odd, given its relevance to concepts like oneness, jouissance, and impossibility. Beginning with Lacan’s riff on enciphering and deciphering in “SEXXI: Les Non-Dupes Errent,” I examine the limits of experiencer testimony as a product of language. I then contrast Lacanian and Jungian notions of reality, highlighting their influence on contemporary discourse surrounding UAP encounters, particularly in Western versus Indigenous kinship-based worldviews. In conclusion, I demonstrate how a Lacanian reading of the experiencer phenomenon reveals underlying structures of denial, love, and hate, offering insight into the “structure of feeling” in post-consumer, post-truth, post-capitalist societies.
Dr. Laura Blunsden—University of Birmingham, UK
“The Infinite I AM”: Applying Jung’s Symbology to Coleridge’s Poetry
The symbol, according to the Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “always partakes of the reality which it renders intelligible; and while it enunciates the whole, abides itself as a living part in that unity of which it is the representative.” It is this meaningful correspondence between the symbol and the symbolized, articulated in a highly particular organizing structure, which distinguishes the symbolic from the merely arbitrary allegorical. In Man and his Symbols, Carl Jung emphasizes the importance of attending to the particularity of symbolic forms in our attempt to gain insight into our psychic lives, through analysis of dreams and meditative states. In my paper, I argue that the organizing structure of the symbol is the human physiology, and that the correspondence between symbol and reality is phenomenological. In doing so, I will draw on Jung’s method of symbology in a close reading of Coleridge’s poem, “Frost at Midnight” (1798).
Dr. Antal Bókay—University of Pécs, Hungary
Hysteria-Criticism and Paranoia-Criticism: Surrealism’s Adventures with Psychoanalysis and the Mysteries of the Soul
Surrealism, a significant late modernist movement of the 1920s and 1930s, exhibited an enigmatic parallel with and interest in psychoanalysis. This was evident as poets, painters, and novelists sought to attain a new depth of personal self-understanding. This intellectual movement was profoundly influenced by psychoanalysis, with prominent surrealists expressing intense admiration for Freud’s work. My presentation will analyze the theoretical thinking and artistic practice of two major surrealists. Breton placed significant emphasis on the concept of dream and automatism, developing a form of hysteria-criticism. Conversely, Dalí introduced a more radical “paranoia-criticism” in both his theoretical musings and artistic oeuvre. While Breton was much closer to Freud, Dalí’s work demonstrated significant parallels with the psychoanalysis of the early Jacques Lacan.
Mrs. Clara Burghelea—The University of Texas at Dallas, USA
The Self, The Other, and Hospitality in Nadine Gordimer’s The Pickup
This paper sets out to discuss the interplay of concepts of Self, the Other and hospitality in Nadine Gordimer’s novel, The Pickup. The novel echoes Arthur Schopenhauer’s “lovingkindness” which translates as respect for ‘otherness’ and dismissal of intolerance in any shape or form. Nadine Gordimer’s characters, Julie and Abdu, are an expression not only of compassion and diversity but also of how self-absorption and absence of empathy shape individuals and choices. Throughout the novel, they develop a conflictual relationship and take turns at becoming Self and the Other; this identification of “self” is always in terms of the “other,” reflecting Jacques Lacan’s take on the dichotomy. The Pickup can also be read as an illustration of the interplay of Jacques Derrida’s notions of other and hospitality as addressed in his books, Adieu: To Emmanuel Levinas and Of Hospitality. The novel asks the reader to consider degrees and practices of hospitality while negotiating the relationship between Self and Other. Similarly, it invites to consider how Paul Ricoeur’s interpretation of hospitality as a reciprocal exchange between host and guest/other is illustrated in Julie and Abdu’s relationship.
Dr. Adrian Chapman—Florida State University (London Centre), UK
“Never Too Late to Do Nothing at All”: Allen Ginsberg and Meditation
In the 1980s, while a student of the Tibetan, Chogyam Trungpa, Allen Ginsberg instructed people in meditation at his poetry readings in the West. With guitar accompaniment, he’d sing an uplifting song, “Do the Meditation.” I’ll play it and give you a text of it and Ginsberg’s poem, “Why I Meditate.” In the song, Ginsberg sings: “if you can’t think straight and you don’t know who to call / it’s never too late to do nothing at all.” I’ll discuss Ginsberg’s engagement with Buddhism, and how setting aside time “to do nothing at all” was a therapeutic practice for him. It was also, for him, a political stance. I’ll relate Ginsberg to other Beat writers’ interests in spirituality, and discuss the poet’s relation to the reception, development, and mainstreaming of meditation in the West.
Ms. Natalja Chestopalova—Toronto Metropolitan University, Canada
Tension, Resonance, Plasticity: Developing Interdisciplinary Methodologies for Projects Weaving Art and Archives Together
The principle meaning of plasticity is the ability to recuperate, to grow, to psychically engage in the life-changing “process of recovery, healing, return” as would happen with the “re-knitting of the skin after the wound” (Changing Difference). What does this look like in an interdisciplinary project that intersects art, archives, and sound? How can Catherine Malabou’s definition of plasticity, as well as her more recent work on destructive plasticity, provide a functional lens for thinking about transformation, tension, and resonance in art/research collaborations that pull on the metaphorical threads of time in search of a reparative meaning? This paper specifically draws on an ongoing case-study: the cumulative work of the project that brings together my psychoanalysis-driven archival research practice (including Library and Archives Canada (LAC) in Ottawa) with the work of the Canadian artist/curator Panya Clark
Espinal, and Olga Plistik, a musician and vocal psychotherapist with a performative and sound practice. At the outset, our collaborative-creative project presented a remarkable opportunity to engage in an interdisciplinary investigation of the living-history and legacy of renowned Canadian artist Paraskeva Clark (1898-1986). Over its multi-year span, this experimental project has transformed into a conduit for rekindling connection through a reparative weaving of art, sound, thread, and memory.
Ms. Borbála Csete—University of Pécs, Hungary
Carnival and Theatrical Festival as Spaces of Sublimation: A Psychoanalytic Perspective
This paper offers a comparative analysis of two contemporary theatre festivals—Ördögkatlan (Hungary) and Festival d’Avignon (France)—through a psychoanalytic lens. Drawing on Freud’s theory of sublimation and Jungian approaches to collective experience, it examines how these events function as socially sanctioned spaces for the expression and transformation of unconscious content. The study argues that the temporal suspension of norms, performative excess, and participatory structures seen in these festivals serve as mechanisms for catharsis, symbolic release, and identity exploration. Referencing Bakhtin’s carnivalesque and Béla Hamvas’ writings on festivity, the paper positions theatrical festivals as culturally embedded frameworks for psychic negotiation and reintegration.
Ráhel Csizmadia—University of Pécs, Hungary
Reconstructing the Relationship with One’s Own Gender in the Oeuvre of El Kazovszkij
Where does one in gender transition go? And how is their journey reflected in the spaces they create? In this paper, I explore the gender journey of El Kazovszkij, a 20-21st Century Hungarian multidisciplinary artist born in Russia, a masculine identifying person who lived his life in a female body. My method is psychobiography, in which I investigate Kazovszkij’s oeuvre, interviews, as well as related analytical works and personal statements. Relevant for my analysis is a) thematization of the journey and the (never) finding of home—in terms of language, gender, and sexual nonalignment; b) Kazovszkij’s own mythology, including the “wandering animal” (vándorállat), which represents him, and the untouchable idol(s); and c) the conscious construction and repetition of his creation and narrative. I combine psychological approaches of creative work as a reconstructive process with more recent psychoanalytic theories that specifically address gender transition beyond the wrong-body-right-body spectrum.
Dr. Joao Da Silva Guerriero—University of Québec, Canada
“Inescapably Relational”: Kinship and Desistance Through Carceral Voices and the Music That Carries Them
The process of criminal desistance and reintegration has been described as “inescapably relational,” with the recently proposed concept of relational desistance accounting for this dimension. However, less is known what key elements of the relationships between incarcerated individuals and their families—that is, kin such as partners, children, parents, siblings, and other relatives, as well as “quasi”-kin like close friends— participate in desistance. This paper further develops the notion of relational desistance by applying an intertextual psychoanalytic intersubjective analysis to the narratives of women serving prison sentences and a selection of songs written by incarcerated women and prisoners’ families. This intertextual exploration illuminates known processes related to relational desistance and reveals new ones through which prisoners and their families reclaim narrative agency. In doing so, they become interpreters of structural violence they are subject to and resist epistemic exclusion as they reshape their lives around—and beyond—the experience of incarceration.
Dr. Samir Dayal—Bentley University, USA
Artificial Intelligence and Self-Consciousness in Some Recent Films
My paper explores the philosophically and, especially, psychologically significant distinctions between consciousness and self-consciousness, a critical distinction that has become increasingly relevant in the era of advancing artificial intelligence. While many assume that human beings are uniquely conscious, I argue that this distinction is unsatisfactory and that nonhuman animals are also conscious. Instead, I propose that human beings are distinct from animals and machines in their capacity for self-consciousness. This distinction has significant implications for our understanding of human intelligence and its relationship to artificial intelligence. By examining the crisis of consciousness in the context of AI, this talk aims to challenge prevailing assumptions and encourage a more nuanced understanding of the human experience. In my talk I look at examples of recent popular films that have explored some conceptually and psychologically vexed issues in provocative and productive ways.
Ms. Tímea Deák-Kovács—University of Pécs, Hungary
In Memory of David Lynch: The Experience of an Uncanny Film Therapy Group
This year we lost one of our greatest filmmakers, David Lynch, so I would like to pay tribute to his work in my presentation. Also, I will show how we run a film therapy self-awareness group where we work with David Lynch’s films as stimulus material, with a particular focus on the Freudian uncanny. In “The Uncanny” (1919), Freud says of the possible ways of the uncanny that this includes cases where we encounter objects with souls, or people without souls, in the course of a story. David Lynch provides a repository of these encounters in his films. Freud writes, “An uncanny effect is often and easily produced by effacing the distinction between imagination and reality, such as when something that we have hitherto regarded as imaginary appears before us in reality” (1919), which is a fundamental motif in many of David Lynch’s films.
Dr. Petra Egri—University of Pécs, Hungary
Feminine Self-Creation on the Destructive Border of Anatomy and Psychology: Poor Things
My paper analyzes Poor Things (2023), the new film by Yorgos Lanthimos, who won several Oscars. The film, which has a steampunk aesthetic, is a field of transgression in many ways. The form and style of the Victorian era are deconstructed by Holly Waddington’s strange and functional costumes, which also represent the transgression of the body boundaries of Bella Baxter and Victoria Blessington (played by Emma Stone), from the child Bella’s clothes to the adult Bella’s outfit, which is a test of her sexuality. Kristeva’s abject and transgressive body experience is also present in the body shapes of the strange, Frankensteinian characters and supporting cast. Similarly, interior and exterior spaces, furniture, rooms, and urban images are formed in the interplay/opposition between the abject and the aestheticized.
Mrs. Inês Faro—University of Montréal, Canada
Voice as Witness of a Relationship or the Differential Structure of Writing? The Inscription of the Maternal Voice in Hélène Cixous’ Souffles
Lori Saint-Martin (1999) argues that the mother-daughter relationship often underpins a protagonist’s writing, driven by a desire to find, escape, or avenge the mother. This paradigm foregrounds the theoretical reflections on the maternal voice and women’s textual representations of the mother’s reverberations in the daughter’s life. In La Venue à l’Écriture (1976), Hélène Cixous reflects how she “was lucky enough to be the daughter of the voice.” According to Cixous, the maternal voice echoes in women’s writing, shaping the text. Drawing on Adriana Cavarero’s (2005) concept of “voice as relationality” in dialogue with Jacques Derrida’s (1967) notion of “différance,” I do a close reading of Cixous’s Souffles (1975) to examine how it can be framed as a dialogue with her mother, particularly her mother’s voice, while extending her theoretical reflections on writing. My analysis also engages feminist psychoanalytic theories on the mother-daughter relationship and writing theories to explore the tensions between presence and absence, creation and destruction, and emancipation and dependence both in writing and in the mother-daughter relationship.
Dr. Elizabeth Fox—Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
The Wrath of Achilles and the Trauma of Others in Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls
The opening of The Iliad identifies Achilles’ “wrath” as “murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses.” This wrath also “cost” the spirits—and voices—of women the Greeks enslaved and brutalized. Barker’s retelling of The Iliad works on several levels. It recounts the end of the Trojan War, including Achilles’ anger after Agamemnon demands Achille’s “bed slave” to replace his, sent home to appease the gods after a plague. Losing Briseis, his “battle prize” triggers Achilles’ refusal to fight. Further, the novel depicts the lives of the enslaved women who weave, launder, cook, and work in the war camp’s hospital. I explore a third level, the way Barker “sings” the psychology of traumatized women and soldiers, including Achilles. Breaking “the silence of the girls,” Barker voices the trauma that male wrath produces, a timely subject; she also depicts the sources and dynamics of Achilles’ emotional dysregulation.
Dr. Julia Frigyes—Vadaskert Hospital, Hungary
How Do I Tell You? Psychological Aspects of Fertility Disorders and the Use of Art in Artificial Reproductive Techniques (ART)
As a psychiatrist I work with women who come to me with perinatal problems. In my presentation I will talk about my therapeutic cases in which a child was conceived naturally after years of infertility, following some kind of magical, symbolic artistic act. I will then talk about the possible causes of psychological disturbance following artificial fertility interventions. Artificial reproduction is a blessing for the couples who have a child through it, and for the children who may be born as a result. However, the disturbed sexuality of the couple, the violence experienced by the gametes, the loss of intrauterine embryos, and the fate of frozen, unused embryos are traumatic for all concerned. The circumstances of egg donation are the most stressful; there are no psychological or evolutionary internal models for dealing with them. The creation of one’s own fairy tale during pregnancy or after the birth of the child can help both parents and child to understand and accept their physical and psychological realities.
Dr. Maria Granic—Benedictine University, USA
Mimetic and Parodic Self-Fashioning in William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair
This paper examines William Makepeace Thackeray’s novel, Vanity Fair (1847-1848), to illustrate how Rebecca Sharp assimilates reality through mimicry and parody as (social) modes of existence through which she circumvents the rules of the Symbolic order, particularly the social limitations that the patriarchal society imposes on women, but she has an unbalanced development. Since Rebecca develops relationally, in contradistinction to the other, without whom she cannot constitute herself, she inhabits the Symbolic, being both a specular and a social I. In the Symbolic, which Lacan sees as “constitutive of the subject” (“Seminar on The Purloined Letter” 29), Rebecca fashions herself by obeying and breaking the ordering law of the Father (the order of discourse), the societal rules. In the end, Rebecca reaches her goal: she becomes a type of woman. Vanity Fair intimates that Victorian society creates space for the woman who experiences the world through mimesis and debunks Victorian values.
Annamária Hódosy—University of Szeged, Hungary
Latent Green Content: Ecological Messages in Popular Films
Many popular films include ecocritical themes, but these ideas are frequently obscure, metaphorical, or reduced to jokes—signals of the discomfort we feel when confronting actions required to address global warming. However, this indirect portrayal of environmental destruction does not necessarily align with “climate denial.” Metaphor and humor, according to Freudian theory, are rhetorical expressions of defense mechanisms that allow a subject to release repressed unconscious content. In this case, the indirect representation of ecological issues can be seen as an ecopsychological strategy: a way of coping with climate anxiety. Drawing on Bettelheim’s insights on fairy tales, such representations provide a means of dealing with the crisis safely but productively. This presentation explores these rhetorical strategies in the films The 5th Wave (J. Blakeson, 2016), Moana (John Musker and Ron Clements, 2016), and Godzilla: King of the Monsters (Michael Dougherty, 2019).
Dr. Kyeong Hwangbo—Wonkwang University, South Korea
The Psychodynamics of Travel: Travel as a Site of Lacanian Integration
This paper approaches travel from a psychoanalytic perspective, exploring its meaning, function, and significance. Travel holds a profound psychological significance beyond mere spatial movement and exploration of unfamiliar environments. It offers an opportunity to simultaneously experience both the past and the present through the act of relocation. Moreover, the movement between places serves as an excellent catalyst for safely bringing unconscious processes into conscious awareness. Travel, as a site of Lacanian integration where the Imaginary, the Symbolic, and the Real intersect and interact, embodies a unique psychoanalytic dynamic. The act of traveling disrupts established psychological structures, enabling individuals to explore and reconstruct their identities in new contexts. By engaging with the Imaginary through self-reflective encounters, the Symbolic through cultural integration, and the Real through transformative experiences, travel facilitates a multi-faceted psychodynamic process. This synthesis underscores travel’s potential as a powerful tool for personal growth, cultural exchange, and existential exploration.
Dr. Vera Kérchy—Independent Researcher, Hungary
Toxic Mothers in Postmodern Fairy Tales
In my presentation, I explore the figure of the oppressive mother who is not a manifestation of the patriarchal subconscious (as the “monstrous feminine” in Barbara Creed’s theory), but of the anxieties of the child suffering from parental authority. I compare the figure of the toxic mother in contemporary literature—The Terrapin (1962) and Carrie (1974)—and in film—Sharp Objects (2018) and Hatching (2022)—with the evil stepmothers of Cinderella and Snow White as analyzed by Bettelheim (1976). I investigate, on the one hand, how the “direct realization” (Lacan) of matricidal desires leads to the experience of “traversing the fantasy” (Lacan) instead of a discrete transition into the Symbolic order. On the other hand, if fairy tales serve fantasies that support the Symbolic order, is not the deconstruction of their structure a radical critique of all power system based on discipline and punishment and, therefore, the reinforcement of the old tradition of sensitization through fairy tales?
Mrs. Aino-Majha Lahtinen—University of Jyväskylä, Finland
Childhood and Youth Experiences in Nicolas de Staël’s Development and Life as a Painter
Nicolas de Staël (1914-1955) was a French painter of Russian origin. He is best known for his large, colorful works representing abstract expressionism. After fleeing from Russia with his family and soon losing his parents, de Staël lived in Belgium. At the age of 17, he announced his volition to become a painter and after that worked intensively to develop his creative potential and to find his own painting style. Based on de Staël’s biography (Greilsamer, 2009) I aim to show how the traumatic events of his childhood, family life, and cultural milieu influenced his lifelong obsessive dedication to painting. I use psychoanalytic views presented by Gilbert Rose in his book Trauma and Mastery in Life and Art (1987) to understand de Staël’s development and work as a painter. Thus, I present an individual case of the way creativity manifests in art and gives meaning to life.
Mrs. Anna Lilja—Private Practice, Finland
Liberating Laughter: Psychoanalysis, Sexuality, and Emancipation in Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying
Isadora Wing is the narrator-protagonist in Erica Jong’s novel, Fear of Flying (1973). The novel depicts young Isadora’s conflicts as she navigates her quest for identity, the mystery of love, and psychoanalysis. The theme of the novel could be framed as an exploration of the possibility and impossibility of emancipation, and how psychoanalysis positions itself within this dynamic of control and emancipation. I will focus on the satirical perspective directed at psychoanalysis and psychoanalysts, exploring how they are portrayed through the eyes of the narrator. I will also consider the extent to which this satirical perspective resonates with today’s psychoanalytic reader. Can one become offended by it, or could one laugh at the “humorless and rigid psychoanalyst” in oneself? And can that laughter be liberating and carnivalesque in the Bakhtinian sense?
Dr. Terttu Mäkinen—Private Practice, Finland
When and Now; Where and Here: Dissociation Rooms, Oedipus Rex, and the Repetitive Fixation on Trauma
As per Sándor Ferenczi’s well-known essay, “The Confusion of Tongues” (1933), the essence of a developing child’s trauma is embedded in the identification with the aggressor. As a result of the aggressor having violated the child’s body in some way, the child victim is left feeling lost and rejected, which can lead to dissociation, nightmares, somatic pain, and identity disorders. In some psychotherapeutic situations, the psychotherapist may become, like the patient already is, unconsciously transfixed by the aggressor’s behavior and the child’s mimicry of that behavior through transference. However, there is a difference between acting out behavior and the mimicry of acting out behavior. In the latter, the aggressor has hijacked the child’s sense of self—similar to Oedipus whose ignorance of his identity is symbolized through his swollen foot. Similarly, the child victim becomes subject to mimicry of the aggressor’s behavior. The capacity to symbolize the trauma through creativity is an important process in the child moving forward towards healing, which I shall explore in this paper.
Dr. Paavo Manninen—University of Jyväskylä, Finland
The Dream of Reading: Displacement of Affect in Reading Fiction
According to Sigmund Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams (1900), in the dreamer’s mind affects detach from unconscious ideas (dream thoughts) and reattach to dream images that we consciously remember when we wake up. Similarly, the reader of fiction attaches their affects to representations offered by the text. In this paper I ask, how does this intrapsychic transference and the concept of displacement, i.e., the redirection of painful negative emotions to a less threatening situation as a defense mechanism, as theorized by Freud, help us understand the reader’s “dream” in the reading process? It is well known that we can locate literature in the transitional area of experience and that it can function as a transference object to the reader, but it seems that Freud’s concept of displacement, as well as the concepts of word-presentation and thing-presentation have rarely been used in the study of psychodynamics of reading. In addition to my theoretical aim, the ideas expressed in this paper may be of interest to those in many kinds of reading settings (e.g., creative reading circles) and to psychoanalysts inspired by literature.
Dr. Rae Muhlstock—University at Albany, USA
The Mirror and the Hedge Maze: Myth and Madness in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining
For director Stanley Kubrick, the mythological Minotaur represents “a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality” (Jung). An agent of the labyrinth that he calls home and derived from its same tensions, the epistemological complexities of Minotaur in Kubrick’s iconic film, The Shining, assume spatial and visual representation in the hedge maze outside the Overlook and the labyrinth inside, doubled through the film’s many mirrors, several of which reflect Jack Torrance—a slanted homophone for Taurus—its victim and its patron saint. Cinematic mastery mixed with Nicholson’s superb acting give the sense that the bull lurks within each of Jack’s cells, creating what we might call a “chiaroscuro lighting of the soul” (Kuberski). Through visual and conceptual labyrinths—represented by mirrors and hedges—Kubrick engages with themes unique to the labyrinth, forecasting the climactic transformation of Jack’s ego-personality that takes place at the end of the film.
Dr. Marcie Newton—University at Albany, USA
Who Removed the Key? A Psychoanalytic Examination of the Constraints and Resistances of Female Sexuality in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening and Sigmund Freud’s Dora: An Analysis of a Case of Hysteria
In this paper, I examine the constraints and resistances surrounding female sexuality within a patriarchal framework at the turn of the twentieth century, as depicted in two texts: Kate Chopin’s The Awakening (1899), a powerful fictional portrayal of Edna Pontellier’s descent into despair amid her struggle for a more fulfilling sexual life; and Sigmund Freud’s Dora: An Analysis of a Case of Hysteria (1905), a real case study based on Freud’s psychoanalytic interpretation of a young woman he believes is suffering from repressed sexual desires. In both texts, readers are invited to navigate complex psychological scenarios that intertwine dream and reality, dread and desire, and oppression and empowerment—forces that permeate both Dora’s and Edna’s bodies and minds.
Dr. Kukka Paavilainen—University of Arts, Finland
The Synergy between Freud’s Developing Theory and His Early Writings about Art
Sigmund Freud’s aim in writing about art pieces was not solely art historical. He did not aim to be a professional art historian; nor did he only aim to provide a completely new interpretation of selected art pieces. The chosen pieces acted as inspiration and functioned as help in his approach to develop new ideas in his theory, especially with regard to the Freudian slip of the tongue and slip of the pen. In my presentation, I will show how Freud’s theoretical ideas developed in a close relationship with some early writings-in-progress after the turn of the century on Moses and Leonardo da Vinci. In this way I hope to make visible how through reading his early writings about Moses and da Vinci, one can follow the ideas as they develop into something much greater than just art historical writings, which have often been judged as not so brilliant scientific texts.
Ms. Maria S. Röell-Kardaun—Maastricht University, The Netherlands
Dreadful Dragons and Merry Maidens: On Jung, Heroic Myth, and the Portrayal of the Feminine
One of the most famous tales from the Legenda Aurea is that of Saint George and the dragon. In this story, a city is at the mercy of a terrifying dragon, ready to devour the king’s daughter. But fear not! The valiant George charges in with his lance, wounds the beast, and entrusts it to the princess, who tames the winged terror with a leash and leads it triumphantly to the city. George then slays the dragon, baptizes the entire population, and departs. While George embarks on numerous other adventures, these are seldom told or depicted. It is the hero’s epic battle with the dragon—deeply rooted in mythological tradition—that lingers in popular memory. In this paper, we will examine the symbolism of this and other archetypal dragon fights from a Jungian perspective, with particular emphasis on the representation of the feminine.
Ms. Nóra Sediánszky—University of Pécs, Hungary
Imagining Don Giovanni Beyond Love and Death
In my presentation, I will give a summary of the Don Juan phenomenon that I have gathered over years of research on Moliere’s play and Mozart’s opera and what my doctoral studies have added to my knowledge of the subject. I first discuss the dual attachment of the figure of Don Juan to love and death to capture the sensual genius of which Kierkegaard speaks, and also the “seducer of the present continuous,” the magician of the logos as Kristeva puts it.
Mozart and his librettist Lorenzo da Ponte created an ambivalent and mysterious image of Don Juan, the anxious and fugitive Eros, whose journey is driven by an incessant and unfolding “pleasure principle,” driven by desire and ending in death as the ultimate, single fulfilment. What is the complex and troubling image of Don Juan (in which Giacomo Casanova is distantly integrated) that Mozart conveys in his masterpiece? I will go on to explore this question using Kierkegaard and Kristeva’s interpretations, and the analysis of Otto Rank and Oscar Schmitz.
Dr. Robert Silhol—Professor Emeritus, University of Paris, France
From Descartes to Freud, Thanks to Lacan: A Rereading of the Cogito
When Descartes decided to write cogito ergo sum over three centuries ago, here in Amsterdam, he may not have been quite aware that the subject of cogito is not the same as the subject of the second verb (sum). This may have been noticed by other scholars, but I thought that after Freud and Lacan’s critiques, this bears repeating and explained, as per several articles I have written on the topic.
Ms. Liting Song—Dalian University of Technology, China
Neural Mechanisms of Color Perception: An EEG Study on the Impact of Brightness, Saturation, and Hue
Color is fundamental to visual perception, shaping emotions, attention, and cognition, particularly in artistic contexts. A study I conducted utilizes electroencephalography (EEG) and event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate how brightness, saturation, and hue influence color perception and cognition. Forty-four right-handed participants (M = 21.28, SD = 1.62, range = 20–25) were recruited. ERP analyses revealed distinct temporal processing patterns across the P1, P2, N2, and P3 components. Results indicated that brightness and saturation primarily modulate early visual processing (P1, P2), enhancing initial neural responses, while hue plays a more prominent role in later cognitive and emotional evaluations (N2, P3). These findings support hierarchical models of visual perception, in which early ERP components reflect low-level feature detection and later components correspond to higher-order cognitive and emotional processing that I’ll be talking about in this presentation.
Dr. Raluca Soreanu—University of Essex, UK
Multi-Tonal Reading: Breaking Down the Walls of the Asylum
In this presentation, I document a sound art and public engagement project, authored by an interdisciplinary research collective (FREEPSY) I am part of based at the University of Essex, which investigates the legacies and practices of free psychoanalytic clinics globally (freepsy.essex.ac.uk). The project voices “multi-tonal readings” (in twenty languages) of My Farewell to the Yellow House by Hungarian psychiatrist and psychoanalyst István Hollós (2024 [1927], 1968 Press). The book is a manifesto that rethinks the practical and theoretical bases of psychiatric care. From the onset, we can read “asylum” not strictly as an institution, a place, or a building, but as a psychic state, one where the demarcations between the “sane” and the “insane” are strong and unquestionable. The event-book offers a sharp critique of society’s gaze upon madness, producing these demarcations. Through a reflection on the sound art project, “Multi-tonal Reading: Breaking Down the Walls of the Asylum,” I discuss how the “multi-tonal readings” perform an ethics of otherness, opening a space for reflection on bearing witness, public testimony and the capacity of societal hosting of strangeness and madness. I treat the recordings/soundings as a “counter-point” or “counter-song” (Adorno), embodying the paradox of a multi-voiced music without a community.
Mrs. Marike Steeman—Private Practice, The Netherlands
Understanding Hilma af Klint’s Abstract Work
The Swedish female artist Hilma af Klint (Stockholm, 1862-1944) created abstract art like Wassily Kandinsky and Piet Mondrian, but although she too was inspired by nature, developments in science, and theosophy, she was not part of one of the avant-garde groups. Towards the end of her life she had her work—consisting of 1300 paintings and many notebooks—stored in the attic of her family’s home. Only in 1986 did her nephew bring out some of her art for a major exhibition in Los Angeles, USA, which was included in Maurice Tuchman et al.’s book, The Spiritual in Art, Abstract Painting 1890-1985. Since a solo exhibition in Stockholm in 2013, the first solo exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York in 2018, and more recently, an exhibition alongside Mondrian at The Hague Art Museum, The Netherlands, in 2023, af Klint is now famous worldwide. Guided by “automatic drawing” and voices of “higher beings,” what is the story behind this abstract artist? We will analyze her work from contemporary object-relations and attachment theory psychoanalytic perspectives with a focus on (gender) identity, dissociation, and splitting.
Mr. Bertalan Balázs Sütő—University of Pécs, Hungary
The Unconscious Self-Recognition of the Psyche: Silberer’s Theory of Symbol Formation and Freud’s Notion of Endopsychic Perception in Mythical-Religious Content and in the Creative Artistic Process
The discourse on symbolism is prominent in the history of psychoanalysis. In this discourse, a relatively rarely quoted author, Herbert Silberer, a contemporary of Sigmund Freud’s, presents ideas on symbol formation. With his notion of autosymbolic phenomenon and the functional category of symbols, he not only captures the peculiarities of fantasy in the hypnagogic state but also offers an alternative perspective on the interpretation of religious and mythological content. Sándor Ferenczi makes creative use of this possibility in his interpretation of the myth of Oedipus. Later, Fausto Petrella explores the relationship between theatre and intrapsychic reality, also drawing parallels with one of Freud’s early and rarely published findings on the notion of endopsychic perception. This concept is essentially about understanding unconscious self-recognition of the psyche in the external world and how our perceptions of the external world are nuanced by our internal psychic realities. I ask, how can the inner psychic reality influence the creative process?
Dr. Patricia Townsend—Independent Scholar, UK
Christopher Bollas and the Creative Process: The Search for the Transformational Object
Christopher Bollas is an object relations psychoanalyst and writer who has extended D.W. Winnicott’s ideas about the early relationship between mother and baby. Writing about the infant’s very early experiences, before the phase of the transitional object, Bollas describes how the mother’s presence and her personal way of caring transform her infant’s experience. She acts as a “transformational object” for her baby, and Bollas sees this as the infant’s first aesthetic experience. This paper considers the artist’s creative process as a quest to re-experience these early moments by fashioning the medium into a new transformational object. Bollas’s theories are discussed in relation to the process of creating a book combining poetry and visual art.
Mr. Alexander Venétis—University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
The Ethics of the Absolute: Why Fail a Real Subject?
Lacan’s “subject,” i.e., the subject of psychoanalysis, is not simply antithetical to academic constructs of the same notion, but rather its unthought. For Lacan, all academic disciplines and discourses hold untenable views of the subject for they conceive of it either as an apolitical stability (a substance with accidents) or as a politicized identity, both fragmented and dispersed (deconstructionist, feminist, queer, postcolonial). By contrast, the Lacanian subject is the subject of the absolute, i.e., the cut/tear/incision of the Real. This, in turn, renders all individuality, agency, personality, and identity highly problematic, if not downright vacuous. In this presentation, I argue that, contrary to popular belief, Lacan should be regarded as incompatible with the other French “theorists” (Derrida, Foucault, Althusser) and their American (mis)readers of pragmatist and postmodern affiliation (Rorty, Butler, Spivak). At the same time, Lacan is also incompatible with evolutionary and cognitive psychology and their popularizers (Dawkins, Pinker). This is why, ultimately, the Lacanian stands alone, rejecting academia’s unquenchable thirst for scientific domination as well as its relentless identitarian moralizing.
Ms. Zhuoran Zhang—University of Debrecen, Hungary
Finding the Gender-Conscious Fuses with Body Image Exploration
This presentation will explore the role and influence of the female body in images on the triggering of the subjective self in women’s image art. Women art practitioners materialize their thoughts through their bodies, using the flesh to express the self-stimulation of autonomous sexual consciousness. This, I suggest, expands to an extension of the philosophy of corporeal consciousness that Maurice Merleau-Ponty has emphasized as the similarity and embodiment of self-conscious triggers, linking the external and internal fluxes of autonomous cognition. I take the specificity of individual perceptions of the female body and the possibility of misinterpretation as a starting point for a discussion on the self-triggering and reconstruction of a female’s bodily consciousness as experimental images in the light of feminist theories of the phenomenology of body and gendered manipulation practices. I will also explore the challenges and possibilities of analyzing images of the female body in pluralistic theories and scenarios.