Description
This is a series of individual lectures. You can select which ones you would like to purchase.
Each lecture will be available for 6 months from the day of purchase.
Why Is Our Planet In Crisis?
Our planetary life support systems are in deep crisis, most prominently with the climate crisis, whose devastating impact is growing year on year. Deeper reasons why it has come this far, despite the dangers being publicly recognised for half a century, are manifold: psychological, sociological, economic, political.
Two important new books explore these reasons: “Psychological Roots of the Climate Crisis: Neoliberal Exceptionalism and the Culture of Uncare” by Sally Weintrobe (Bloomsbury) and “How Women Can Save the Planet” by Anne Karpf (Hurst).
As Sally Weintrobe argues, a “culture of uncare” has developed, driven by a widespread Exceptionalism that overrides caring, whether for others or for the planet. Anne Karpf points at an important gender divide, in that worldwide women have done much less to cause the crisis yet are suffering most from it. Addressing the climate crisis needs to touch on fundamental questions of how we live together and it cannot be achieved without our capacity to care more firmly in the driving seat.
Sally Weintrobe, psychoanalyst and author who has written and talked on climate change and its roots, and Anne Karpf, sociologist, journalist and author, will be in dialogue about their books and about the psychological and sociological reasons for climate change and what needs to change on a deeper level. The dialogue will be chaired by the psychoanalyst Trudy McGuinness.
A Well Gardened Mind
The garden may be seen as a refuge from real life, but gardening can offer a deep connection with nature, a mental as well as physical activity. Getting our hands in the earth connects us with the cycle of life in nature, where destruction and decay are followed by regrowth and renewal, thus answering to deep existential needs. Tending to plants can foster the gardening of inner space, allowing the working through of feelings and problems, and as research has shown, may alleviate symptoms of anxiety and depression.
The psychiatrist, psychoanalytic psychotherapist and passionate gardener Sue Stuart Smith has delved deeply into these issues in her bestselling book, “The Well Gardened Mind”. Uncannily, though five years in the making, this book was published on the cusp of the first Covid lockdown and the author’s ideas help us understand why so many of us (re-)turned to our gardens for solace and space at this unprecedented time. She will be in dialogue with the psychoanalyst Eileen McGinley, a keen gardener herself. They will explore our connections with nature and the link between body and mind in such activities, as well as the therapeutic use of gardening. The dialogue will be chaired by the psychoanalyst Susan Godsil
