Psychotherapy and Love

‘…But when did love not try to change……The world back to itself..‘ -Philip Larkin This workshop explores the unique attitude towards love which is offered in psychodynamic/analytic psychotherapy. This attitude is intimate and reaches the core of the human personality. It is the bedrock of human relationships and the therapeutic professions,  the ‘building block ‘ that makes relationships bind, the ‘catalyst’ which can transform human beings. It can mitigate destructive and hateful feelings. Freud stated that the aim of therapeutic work would be a better capacity to love and work. Jung wrote of mystical union and spirituality, a welcome deviation from reductive thinking. Klein stressed the importance of love in the resolution of envy, greed and destructiveness. What is love, according to psychodynamic therapy ? How does it work ? In this workshop attendees will explore and reaffirm :

• The meaning of love and its functions.
• The relation of love (or its absence) to hate, perversion and violence
• How love in its ordinary and resilient form can overcome isolation and perversive modes of behaviour.
• How and why love is eroded/devalued.