May 14, 2011

The Manualisation of Persons, The Personalisation of Manuals

This presentation will cover ground not unfamiliar to researchers, academics and clinicians alike – the inexorable move towards a science-based research methodology and its clinical applicability to a mental health service.

Science seems difficult to question at times as it convincingly uses its own evidence to support its own evidence but David will try.

He will also try to speak to certain aspects of the purchase, policy and practice of psychoanalysis in a contemporary context.

He accepts that these may not be entirely original nor entirely controversial as others may share his views but he would like to end by attempting to challenge the whole of Freudian theory especially the core of its theory – the role and purpose of the unconscious - in order to spark perhaps some modest debate on the future of the human species.

David Millar:

• Trained as a Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist at the Tavistock Clinic in 1978 following careers as a social worker and teacher in London.
• Trained as a forensic psychotherapist at the Postman Clinic and qualified in 1991 and is a founding member of the International Association for Forensic Psychotherapy [IAFP].
• Trained as an adult psychotherapist at the Tavistock Clinic and qualified in 1995.
• A founding member of the Centre for Psychoanalytic Studies at the University of Essex in 1995 and the first director of its first degree - the MA in Psychoanalytic Studies, which is still running today.
• Recently retired from the North Essex Partnership Foundation Trust as Consultant Psychotherapist but continues to work part-time in an NHS Adolescent In-patient unit.
• His academic interests along with his clinical practice have remained steadfastly generic.