Novelist Sebastian Faulks in conversation with psychoanalytic psychotherapist Monica Lanman

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) September 20, 2009 -- The Connecting Conversations series, which brings together leading figures from arts fields with practitioners from the world of psychoanalysis, returns with an event featuring the outstanding and versatile novelist Sebastian Faulks.

The former journalist, well-known for novels such as Charlotte Gray and Birdsong, Faulks will discuss his fiction with psychoanalytic psychotherapist Monica Lanman. They will focus in particular on two of his more recent novels, Human Traces and Engleby. Both psychological tours de force, Human Traces is set in the context of the early days of psychiatry and psychoanalysis and Engleby offers a ‘first person’ glimpse from the inside, of severe disturbance.

Sebastian Faulks says: "All novelists try to understand character, though I may be unusual in having written a fair bit about how other people – psychologists, psychiatrists and psychoanalysts – go about it professionally. There are some overlaps. Although I think the basis of early psychoanalytic writing was flawed, I have great respect for what later practitioners have done and am looking forward very much to any insights that may be brought to my books. Whether I will agree is a different matter..."

Psychoanalytic psychotherapist Monica Lanman says, "The novelist’s capacity to enter into and give voice to the perceptions and experience of a variety of characters resonates with the concerns and approach of psychoanalytic work. Faulks’ books repeatedly focus on the effects of trauma, and the roots of mental illness, whether in wartime or more broadly, themes which are of particular interest to anyone seeking to understand the minds of others."

Connecting Conversations is a series of events bringing together psychoanalysis and other fields. It aims to create a forum where ideas can be explored and new connections developed, both between ideas and disciplines, as well as between people. The series is produced by The Rowan Arts Project, with partners including the British Association of Psychotherapists, British Library, Freud Museum, Institute of Psychoanalysis, Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust, the Psychoanalysis Unit at UCL and Women's Therapy Centre.

Tickets: £12/£8 concessions, £10 for Friends of Freud Museum

Free online booking at www.connectingconversations.org, book by phone on 07787 814316 (fee applies for phone bookings).

For press tickets and all other media enquiries contact Ginette Goulston-Lincoln on 07958 448002, ginette@goulston-lincoln.com

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