Saturday 8th February 2025, 9:15am to 5:30pm Institute of Group Analysis, 1 Daleham Gardens, London, NW3 5BY
Convener: Dick Blackwell
This workshop presents authors of 'Psychoanalysis Under Occupation: Practicing Resistance in Palestine’, Lara and Stephen Sheehi, in conversation with Reem Shelhi and Sue Einhorn, who have both reviewed the book in the group analytic publications, ‘Contexts’ and Group Analysis Quarterly, and Diyala Midhat, Community and Educational Psychologist working in Jerusalem in conversation with Reem Shelhi. Each conversation will be followed by a large group discussion.
Lara and Stephen Sheehi’s book describes the experiences of Palestinian clinicians practicing analytic psychotherapy in Palestine, revealing the impact of the occupation on the mental health of individuals and communities and the difficulties of practicing in that setting. Diyala Midhat will talk about her clinical and advocacy work with women and children in Jerusalem. We had hoped to have Lara and Stephen Sheehi with us in person but owing to logistic problems (they will be in the US), they will join us by video link for the conversations. So will Diyala Midhat who will be in Jerusalem. Reem Shelhi and Sue Einhorn will be with us in person and will participate in the large group discussions. There are online tickets available for the conversations, but the large group discussions will only be in person at the workshop venue - IGA London.
Lara Sheehi (she/her) is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychology at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, Qatar, and a Research Fellow at the University of South Africa's Institute for Social and Health Sciences. She is the founding faculty director of the Psychoanalysis and the Arab World Lab. Lara’s work takes up decolonial and anti-oppressive approaches to psychoanalysis, with a focus on liberation struggles in the Global South. She is co-author with Stephen Sheehi of Psychoanalysis Under Occupation: Practicing Resistance in Palestine (Routledge, 2022) which won the Middle East Monitor's 2022 Palestine Book Award for Best Academic Book. Lara is the President of the Society for Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Psychology (APA, Division 39) and co-editor of Studies in Gender and Sexuality and co-editor of Counterspace in Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society. Lara is on the advisory board for the USA-Palestine Mental Health Network and the founding collective for the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism. She is currently working on a new book, From the Clinic to the Streets: Psychoanalysis for Revolutionary Futures (Pluto Press).
Stephen Sheehi (he/him) is the Sultan Qaboos Professor of Middle East Studies in the Asian and Middle East Studies Program and Director of the Asian and Pacific-Islander American Studies Program at William & Mary, where he also is the Director of the Decolonizing Humanities Project. Professor Sheehi is the author of five books, and a number of articles, book chapters, and commentaries that circulate around modern Arab cultural and social formations, psychoanalysis, colonialism and imperialism, with particular theoretical interest in Marxism, and decolonial theory and practice. Most recently, he is co-author of Camera Palaestina: Photography and the Displaced Histories of Palestine with S. Tamari and I. Nassar (University of California Press, 2022) and he and Lara Sheehi are the authors of Psychoanalysis Under Occupation: Practicing Resistance in Palestine (Routledge, 2022), which was awarded the 2022 Palestine Book Award. He is on the advisory board of the USA–Palestine Mental Health Network.
Diyala Midhat is a Jerusalem-based community and educational psychologist specialising in supporting children with learning difficulties. Her work centres on advocating for children’s rights, empowering women and youth in Palestinian society, and developing trauma-informed programs aimed at enhancing cognitive and emotional mental health. Through her initiatives, she provides critical support to children and women, addressing the unique challenges they face in their community.
Reem Shelhi is a neurodiverse Anglo-Arab Psychotherapist, Group Analyst and Clinical Supervisor with a unique intersectional history providing a rich foundation for her work on identity, sexuality, oppression and existential issues around loss, grief, and the search for meaning. She serves on the Management Committee of the Group Analytic Society International, as well as on the Steering Committee for Group Analysts for Palestine, with a special interest in exploring "Locations of Disturbance" in the context of physical, psychological, and psychosocial oppression, occupation, and liberation efforts.'
Sue Einhorn has worked as a Literary Agent, a Detached Youth Worker, a Community Worker and a Senior Lecturer in Social Work. She has also worked clinically at the Women's Therapy Centre, at the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, Baobab and ICAP. She is currently a Training Group Analyst for the IGA and has a private clinical practice. She convened the training of Group Analysts in St. Petersburg and currently supervises senior Group Analysts in Russia and Denmark and trainees in Albania. She is also developing a training in Group Analysis in Singapore. She was Scientific Chair of GASI for 6 years. In 2021 delivered the GASi Foulkes Lecture - From A Woman’s Point of View. She lectures widely and writes occasionally. She is a member of GANLondon and of GA4Palestine
Dick Blackwell is a Group Analyst, Family Therapist and Organisation Consultant; Graduated in Business Management, studied Physical Education, then worked as researcher on youth and community work project Black Youth in the Inner City before training in group analysis and family therapy. He has been co-ordinator of volunteer counsellors and psychotherapists at the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, Consultant Group and Family Therapist to Baobab Centre for Young Survivors in Exile, and Founder and Director of the Centre for Psychotherapy and Human Rights; Associate Editor of Group Analysis; author of ‘Counselling and Psychotherapy with Refugees’; co-author of ‘Far from the battle but still at war: Troubled Refugee children in schools’; and has written extensively on psychotherapy culture and politics.
Workshop Programme
9.15am – 9.45am, Registration
9.45am – 10.00am, Welcome and introductions
10.00am – 11.30am, Diyala Midhat in conversation with Reem Shelhi
11.30am – 11.45am, Coffee/tea
11.45am – 1.00pm, Small groups
1.00pm – 2.15pm, Lunch
2.15pm – 3.45pm, Lara and Stephen Sheehi in conversation with Reem Shelhi and Sue Einhorn
3.45pm – 4.00pm, Coffee/tea
4.00pm – 5.30pm, Large Group
Costs:
In person
Public: £55 (so that no-one should miss out for financial reasons, it is hoped that those who can afford this fee respect the principle of a low rate being offered)
IGA Members: £35
IGA Students (and those on a low income): £25
Online
Public: £30
IGA Members: £25
IGA Students (and those on a low income): £15
Register Online: www.groupanalysis.org
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