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The first thing to say is that this document is already becoming obsolescent. Things change so fast on the internet that anything that is in print, by which I mean hard copy like a book or periodical, will be likely to be at least partly out of date by the time it appears. The thing to do is to subscribe to a service which will tell you about new things and changes to old things as they occur. Fortunately, there is just such a service (called an egroup). It’s called human-nature-info, and you can subscribe to it for free by sending an e-mail with no message to
human-nature-info-subscribe@egroups.com
You will thereafter (until you unsubscribe) get an email whenever anything of interest to psychoanalysts or psychotherapists turns up on the internet. The accumulating archive of the egroup is a listing of sites, forums, egroups and other relevant information available on the internet, as well as useful information about other things on the net which you may find helpful, for example, search engines which will find things for you, and anything else I think people who practice and/or study psychoanalysis or psychotherapy might appreciate knowing about.
I have written this essay to make the internet accessible to psychoanalysts and psychotherapists. Some are already well versed in it, but they are a small minority. Many know that there is stuff on the internet of potential interest to them, but they are not sure how to find it. Others know a bit about finding it but are anxious or unsure and are therefore prone to give up easily. My aim is to make it easy. I’ll begin with a short exposition of what you will need. In terms of machines (hardware) and programs (software), then I’ll move on to ways of finding things and close with some lists of things I know about which you may want to make use of.
If you already have satisfactory equipment, you can skip this part, though you might have been thinking of upgrading, so you may want to consider my advice.
First, you’ll need a computer, and your first choice is between a Mac and a PC. Most people ? about 95% ?use PCs (personal computer). There are hundreds of manufacturers and packagers. You can find them at a computer superstore. In my opinion, the best is Dell, who only sell direct from the manufacturer (0870 152 4666 in England for catalogue). They are also the best-selling brand and have the best service, so you can’t go wrong with them. There are several other reputable manufacturers which have good reputations, e.g., Dan, IBM, Evesham (the reputation of Compaq is plummeting). The consumer magazine Which? (Nov. 2001) lists the four brands I have mentioned as high on the list of various measures, including whether or not the customer would recommend it to a friend. There is one firm which is listed last for about everything, TIME Computers. Yet they give you the best bargains. I have a TIME PC, so does my partner and my closest colleague. We find the firm tedious to deal with, but they do sort things out in the end, and you certainly get your money’s worth from them. They advertise daily in the press, and some of their offers are truly breathtaking bargains. However, you probably don’t need all the memory and speed of processing information which they offer. Wisest to go for an admired manufacturer which makes reliable machines and gives good service and telephone backup.
There is a glut of computers on the market, so you will get a lot more for your money than you would have a few months ago. If you aren’t going to do anything fancy, you can get by with the following specifications. There are three things to think about. You will need a processor if at least 500 mhz. That and the RAM (random access memory) will determine how many programs you can run at once and how quickly things will happen. Most machines nowadays come with a processor of 1000 mhz or more, so that’s fine. You should also have at least 128 mb of RAM. I’d suggest 256 mb (I have 640 mb). That’s the memory that will run your software, and it is gratifying to have it run smoothly as a result of having ample resources.
The next decision is how much hard disc memory to get. Hard disc space is the electronic equivalent of filing cabinet capacity. I’d recommend at least 40 GB. (I have 60 GB), but many would say settle for 20 GB. Hard disc memory is cheap these days; so is RAM. So why skimp? If you get involved in downloading music, it will eat up 1 mb per minute. If you have 300 songs, that’s about 1 GB. Pictures also eat up memory. A sensible provision would be 1000 Mhz processor, 256 mb of RAM and 20 GB of hard disc memory. A generous provision would be a faster processor (they go up to and beyond 2000 mhz), 512 mb of RAM and 40 or 60 GB of hard disc memory. You specify what you want and they put them into the computer or find a model from their catalogue which meets your requirements Don’t worry about the modem which connects the computer to the phone plug, since that will be the current standard of 56 k and will already be built into the computer without your having to specify it.
You will also need a printer. The inexpensive ones are called inkjet printers and produce good copies. Some are very cheap (around ?00) and reliable, e.g., Epson and Hewlett-Packard, but if you buy cheap you may find you have made a false economy. The ink cartridges are small and expensive ?most are over ?5 a pop and only do a few hundred average pages. If your printing output is modest, that’s okay though still a rip-off. You can buy compatible ink cartridges much cheaper ?about half ?from office equipment suppliers, e.g., Viking Direct (0800 424444/5 in the UK). But if you are going to print a lot, I’d recommend a laser printer. Hewlett-Packard make good ones costing between about ?00 and ?50. The cartridges cost three or four times as much as those for a cheap ink jet printer, but the last for thousands of pages and are also faster than most ink jet printers at printing things out. They only do black and white though (colour laser printers cost s lot ?more than ?50). An ideal combination would be a fairly cheap inkjet if you want to print colour, e.g., photos, and a laser printer for inexpensive reproduction of articles, multiple copies and print-outs of longer things you download off the net. Here’s a stark fact: as a general rule running costs make up 50% of the lifetime cost of a laser printer but 90% with an inkjet (PC Magazine, Mar. 2002).
I’d also recommend buying a scanner so you can scan documents, pictures, etc. into your computer. I’d recommend a Microtek 4800, which I recently got for my daughter. You can find reviews of new equipment in computer magazines which you can browse at a newsagent. The Microtec got good reviews and is inexpensive at about ?11.
Most machines come with speakers these days, but they aren’t much cop. If you want to use your computer to listen to music I’d buy some better external ones. Better still, you can put an audio lead from your computer into your hi-fi. I should mention here that you can download any music you fancy into your computer with software from Gnutella (Mactella for Macs). Free software, free downloads of music. Many computers come with a CD burner (which you can also buy separately, e.g., Iomega Zip CD 650), so you can make your own CDs with favourite tunes, symphonies or other music downloaded from the internet or selected from your own CDs. Or you can download them into an MP3 player or other portable device and listen to it as one would a walkman or discman. They hold lots of music. I have one that holds 1000 songs or about 70 CD’s worth. Ones with an even greater capacity are available.
I said above that you have an important choice to make between Mac and PC and then went on to write about PCs, since that’s what most people have. However, I am a firm devotee of Apple Mac computers. I have both kinds, and the Apple Mac is far more user-friendly. In fact, they invented user friendliness, and the Microsoft operating system used in most PCs is a rip-off of the Mac system and nothing like as elegant. I’d say that discriminating people prefer Macs. They look better and are more simple to operate. You pay more, but you get more for your money. You will have seen adverts for colourful iMacs. The more fancy Macs are called G4. I have one, and it is wonderful. They have recently come out with an even more elegant model with all the hardware in a dome and with a flat screen as standard. Have a look at some Macs and some PCs. Try them out. Apple Macs came near the top in every measure in the recent Which? survey of consumer satisfaction and were top for ease of setting up, second for whether or not people would recommend one to a friend and third for reliability (after Compaq and IBM and just above Dell). Mac is at the moment streets ahead of PCs in handling pictures, videos and music. They have built-in software called iTunes. You can put your CDs or favourite tracks into the library of iTunes, along with music downloaded from the internet. You can then play the music through your speakers or hi-fi or download it in seconds into a amazing thing called an iPod (?49) which, as I said above, holds 1000 song. I love it. Ninety-five per cent of personal computers are PCs, but the five per cent which are Macs are used by the better sorts of people, or so I think, but this claim is hotly-disputed, and one must admit that there is more software available for PCs.
I should also mention laptops. They have the considerable advantage of taking up a lot less space at home, being easy to put away and being available to take away on trips, to libraries for research or in moving back and forth between home and office. You pay more for your computer, but the convenience is worth it, and a laptop performs just as well as a bigger computer. It is likely to come with only 128 mb of RAM, and the hard disc is likely to be 20 GB tops, but you can increase these easily at the time of purchase or later. Once again, I think Apple’s iBook is the most elegant and best, but there are all sorts of good PC laptops, e.g., Dell, Sony, Toshiba. The screen will be smaller than you get with a full-size computer, but it is adequate.
By the way, there are people who make their livings advising people about what computer to buy and who will get the equipment for you, install it, give you one or more tutorials and be available for telephone back-up and (at an hourly cost of, say, ?0/hr.) will also come to sort out any difficulties which can’t be talked through on the phone. I have had a very good experience with a nationwide group of independent Mac advisers called Macs2you (0870 1694616 in the UK). I have heard of people who do this for PCs but don’t know anyone to recommend (try the Yellow Pages).
Your computer will come with an internal 56 k modem and a lead to connect the computer to the telephone socket. The link between your modem and the internet is an internet service provider (ISP). The ISP is a company, and you will have to choose one and subscribe to its service to use the internet’s main facilities, i.e., e-mail and the world wide web, where all the information is available. Your computer will come with some programs which will offer you various ISPs. If you are going to be connected to the internet (‘on-line? a lot, you ought to get a separate telephone line or at least a gizmo to connect to your phone lead (available at computer shops) to tell you when someone is ringing you while you are on-line. I have a separate line with a cable company, and I use their very fast internet service, Blueyonder. It is always connected and costs ?5 a month, but, then, I am a heavy user. You can get all sorts of deals with different ISPs. BT has a service which allows unlimited usage, as do Freeserve and AOL (AOL’s costs ?4.95 per month for unlimited usage). You probably get CDs for many of these, especially AOL, through your letter box pretty frequently. I use AOL for my PC and Blueyonder for my Mac. If you are not going to be on-line enough to justify the unlimited usage option, go for an ordinary service provider where you pay little or nothing for the service and normal phone rates for the time you are on-line, e.g., Freeserve.
To get email you will need a program. Each of the internet browsers offers one free, as do Yahoo and various other service companies on the web. There are two main browsers, Netscape and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. I use Netscape, because I have a bias against Microsoft (but, inconsistently use Microsoft’s word processing program, Microsoft Word, because it’s best an most used). You can probably get either of the browsers from the stuff which comes with your computer, but you can also get the latest version from the free CD which comes with practically any computer magazine. I subscribe to PC Magazine and to MacFormat, each of which has a CD every month with all sorts of free software. It’s probably a good idea to subscribe to one or more computer magazines, since things are changing all the time, and you will want to know some of what’s happening. There is a magazine specifically for internet users called .Net (‘dot Net?, which I find very helpful.
I don’t like the email programs which come with the browsers. I prefer one which you can get free on the internet, Eudora (see below for an explanation of the jumble of letters):
There is a more elaborate version called Eudora Pro. It allows you to do all sorts of things with your email which I find convenient. That’s what I use (available at computer shops).
You can install Netscape or Internet Explorer (or both) with ease from a CD which comes with your computer or with a computer magazine or from a CD that arrives unbidden in your post. You can then download upgrades as the browsers get improved. There is another browser, Opera, which is faster and elegant which can be downloaded from the internet:
Once you have an ISP and a browser you can connect to any web site, including some from which you can download updates of your preferred browser(s). The one I use is download.com, which is at
I have now given several examples of web addresses, called a URLs or universal resource locators. These are the unique addresses you put into your browser to find something on the web. You have to be very careful to type them in exactly as they appear. Once you have them in your computer you can use the Edit menu to select them, copy them and paste them into a blank space without having to type them out. So, if you want to find useful downloads, you go to
If you want to go to my web site you go to http://www.human-nature.com/
You do this in Internet Explorer by pulling down the File Menu and choosing Open Location and fill in the blank with exactly those letters and symbols. In Netscape you pull down the File Menu and choose Open and the Location in Navigator and type in the URL. If you get the Opera browser, you choose New and fill in the blank space for the Address (Internet Explorer) or Location (Netscape) where you want to go on the web. In each case you then hit the Return button on your keyboard, and the software and your ISP take you there in seconds. You may want to begin with only one browser (which is all you really need), in which case I’d suggest Netscape.
If you know what you want information about but don’t know its URL, you go to a search engine. There are a number of these, but you will find anything you need with one or two of them. The currently most admired one is called Google
and the other one is called Ask (sometimes called Ask Jeeves)
I just tried to obtain the URL for the web site of the London Centre for Psychotherapy. Jeeves didn’t know (but led me to its street address), while Google did:
http://www.lcp-psychotherapy.org.uk/
I asked each one for the Institute of Psychoanalysis and got other psychoanalytic institutes in the world, but when I specified the London Institute of Psychoanalysis, I got the right one from Google (after following up some obvious links) but not from Ask Jeeves: http://www.psychoanalysis.org.uk/
I’d have done better to ask for the British Psychoanalytical Society which both search engines found straightaway.
You ask questions of search engines in ordinary English. The engine (hopefully) finds what you want, often with some other locations you don’t want. You then click the name you want (usually highlighted in blue) out of the options on offer, and the software takes you there. You can then archive that URL (under Favourites in the Internet Explorer menu or Bookmarks under Netscape’s if you don’t want to go through that rigmarole again next time. Each browser has its own search menu which will offer you various search engines, so you will almost certainly find what you want if you persevere.
The world of search engines is large, complex and growing. Meta search engines search the search engines in combination and cover 42% of the web
Mamma http://www.mamma.com/
Dogpile http://www.dogpile.com/
Search Engine Watch is full of up to date news and tips http://searchenginewatch.com/
Of course, you can use a search engine to find literally anything. Ask one about dictionaries, encyclopaedias, Bion, Klein, Freud, Rogers, Jung, solution-focussed therapy, object relations, counter transference, behaviour therapy, post-traumatic stress disorder ?and you will get lots of answers, some bizarre, some spot on. You can also find old friends and classmates, book travel, buy anything, look at pornography, buy books and CDs (new or second-hand), hunt for bargains. You name it.
Reflecting on what sorts of things you might want to use the internet for, I have come up with a short list.
1. to send electronic messages (called e-mails) to individuals, forums, egroups or commercial organizations and to receive e-mail
2. to subscribe to forums or egroups or other facilities which inform you about things.
3. to go to the web sites of organizations
4. to go to archives of books, articles or other materials, e.g., encyclopaedias or indexes of information
5. to use the net to search for things to buy, e.g., books, CDs, cars, holiday or other travel bookings. items for the home. You can also do sophisticated comparison shopping, e.g, the cheapest price for a new or second-hand book or CD
6. to download music
7, to search for information about films, stars, historical figures, events, concepts
8. to look for something I have not thought of
I said in the first paragraph that you can subscribe to an egroup which will keep you updated on information on the internet which is available re: psychoanalysis, psychotherapy and related matters. I’ll now explain what an egroup is, but first I’ll say what an internet forum is, since you will probably want to belong to some forums and some egroups. They do much the same things but via different routes. A forum is based on email. It uses some software to send messages sent to it, to people who have subscribed to that discussion group. For example, I subscribe to a forum called psychoanalytic-studies. It is based at the University of Sheffield where I teach. You can join this forum by sending an email to listproc@sheffield.ac.uk
Body of message: subscribe psychoanalytic-studies yourname
Once you have done that, whenever anyone sends a message to the forum, you will get a copy as an email message. You can choose to bin it unopened (if you don’t fancy the topic listed in the Subject line), open it and read it, bin it then, file it or respond to it. It may be part of an ongoing discussion (called a ‘thread? on a given topic or an announcement or whatever the sender wants to say to the subscribers. For the most part people like to read the messages and respond only occasionally. Some respond frequently, some (called ‘lurkers? almost never. There are many email forums. Most are based at universities. Until recently you could only set up one of these if you had access to a server which would act as host, and this was not always easy for people not connected to universities or professional organizations with servers. However, recently a number of commercial organizations have set up discussion groups serving the same purpose but based on the world wide web. These are called egroups. The messages still come to you via email, but there are additional facilities. All have archives of messages, all have vaults or other storage spaces where articles or other longer documents can be stored. When I last looked there were about 90,000 email forums and about a quarter of a million egroups. Anyone can set one up on any decent topic in about a minute, and anyone can join almost all of them (a few are closed groups, a few vet applicants). The most user-friendly host of egroups is Yahoo groups. Go to
and you will see an index of groups. Once again, you can also set one up if you want. There are (at the time of writing) 105 under psychotherapy and 46 under psychoanalysis. I just scrolled through them and found many I did not know about, including ones on ‘Freud-psychoanalysis? child psychoanalysis, Jung, Lacan, Sartre, hypnoanalysis/therapy, body work, gays, papers on psychoanalysis. I run about a dozen forums and egroups and belong to another few dozen, some of which I will list below.
Topica does the same as Yahoo groups. They offer free email discussion groups and news-letters, as well. There are thousands of existing ones, and you can create a new one on any topic for free and in a minute. http://www.liszt.com/index.html
Yet another place you can start an egroup is SmartGroups, ‘the free service for group communication?
http://www.smartgroups.com/index.cfm
Most psychoanalytic, psychotherapy and counselling organizations have web sites, some with extensive archives of papers and other materials, and many have discussion groups. New ones are added all the time. You can find them via the sources listed below and by joining email forums or other discussion groups
As I mentioned at the beginning, there is a growing and regularly updated archive of web sites and forums on psychoanalysis, psychology, history & philosophy of the human sciences, human nature and other potentially interesting matters concerning making use of the internet at
http://www.egroups.com/list/human-nature-info/
There is also The Online Dictionary of Mental Health
http://www.human-nature.com/odmh/index.html
largely compiled by Ian Pitchford but not currently kept strictly up to date.
There is a fairly comprehensive list of forums and web sites of interest to psychotherapists, counsellors and psychoanalysts at
http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/guides.html
though it is also getting out of date.
There are many email discussion groups based at universities and commercial sites. Several are listed below.
For guidance to interesting essays, news, debates, go daily to Arts & Letters Daily, which also has links to main newspapers, magazines, columnists, etc. http://www.cybereditions.com/aldaily/
There is a large archive of materials in psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, group relations, Darwinian psychology and other matters related to human nature at http://www.human-nature-com/
This site contains many, many papers, books and other and texts in psychoanalysis. It receives about 3000-5000 visits per day.
British Psycho-Analytical Society
Site contains many papers, reviews, notices of coming events, links (very select?
http://www.psychoanalysis.org.uk/
Psyche Matters
Large archive of writings, bibliographies, links re: psychoanalysis
http://psychematters.com/index.htm
Freudian Links
An Index of Freud and Psychoanalysis Related Resources
http://www.mii.kurume-u.ac.jp/~leuers/Freud.htm
The Encyclopedia Britannica is now fully accessible free (for a three week trial) at
HUMAN NATURE INFORMATION egroup
This forum (mentioned in the first paragraph above) is an archive of information about email forums, web sites, archives and other information of potential interest to people working or interested in human nature. It includes the human sciences, philosophy, psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, psychiatry, philosophy of science, issues in medicine and the history of medicine, social studies of science, cultural studies, brain science and any other topic which appears to be relevant, including publications and information of general interest to internet users.
The egroup archives any new information there which may be of specialist interest, as well as other items which may be of general interest, e.g., cultural publications, free software, conferences, etc. Subscribers will receive each announcement as it is posted, and they will all be archived at the group’s web site. Over time this has become a considerable resource.
To join the egroup, send e-mail with no message to human-nature-info-subscribe@egroups.com
The group’s messages, calendar, document vault, and more are available on the web at http://www.egroups.com/group/human-nature-info/
Suggested items for inclusion on the forum and for placement in the archive will be submitted for consideration.
Moderator: Robert M. Young
HUMAN NATURE egroup
This egroup is designed to provide a space for interdisciplinary discussion of issues concerning human nature, including, for example, philosophical and historical issues, theories of human nature in psychology and the human sciences, archaeology, psychiatry, psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. The idea behind it is to build bridges, i.e., the opposite of sectarian carping, down putting or scoring. The academic division of labour is so balkanised that it is often difficult to know what’s going on in fields quite close to one’s own, never mind ones which are more intellectually distant. It is hoped that subscribers will draw the group’s attention to important new ideas and publications. It is also hoped that people will offer essays for the Vault (web site) and links to other relevant web sites. Academics, clinicians and interested laypeople are all welcome.
Moderator: Robert M. Young
The group’s messages, calendar, document vault, and more are available on the web at
http://www.egroups.com/group/human-nature/
The group’s email address for sending messages is
To subscribe automatically, send an email to
human-nature-subscribe@egroups.com
Moderator: Robert M. Young
HUMAN NATURE BOOKS egroup
human-nature-books-l@egroups.com
This is an announcement list for the purpose of sharing personal knowledge about good and excellent books about human nature. It is my opinion that many - perhaps most - people on the net have patchy knowledge of the literature in this very broad field. From time to time I will offer views on particular books and series, which I know well or have reason to recommend.
The project will inevitably centre on topics where I am knowledgeable. I am particularly well read about psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, philosophy, history & philosophy of the human sciences, social malaise, and Darwinism. I am particularly industrious in these areas because of research and writing in which I am engaged. I also try to remain well informed about more general and reflective books about human nature and society. I will also recommend works in any related field, e.g., fiction, social science, world affairs, which have come to my attention and which I think well of.
Access to the archive will be open to anyone, not just subscribers to the egroup. I will also supply web addresses for ordering those of the books, which I recommend, which are in print. People who order by this route will pay the usual price, while I will benefit to the extent of a few per cent of the price, money which I will devote to our research, net activities and publishing. People who subscribe or make use of the archive are, of course, free to purchase the books from anywhere they like or borrow them from a library. Buying them from the recommended suppliers is not essential to making use of this resource (though I would appreciate it). Suggestions for books to include in the recommended list are welcome.
Subscription URL
It is easy to subscribe to human-nature-books; egroups has created a URL that you can use to join the list. The URL is: http://www.egroups.com/subscribe/human-nature-books-l
Moderator: Robert M. Young
PSYART email forum
Psychological Study of the Arts
To subscribe, send an email to: LISTSERV@nervm.nerdc.ufl.edu
Body of message: subscribe psyart
Web site for Inst. for Psychological Study of the Arts and PSYART journal:
Moderator: Norman Holland
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PSYCHOANALYSIS DISCUSSION GROUP
THE IJPA discussion group conducts discussions of specified papers from the journal (four per year). http://www.ijpa.org/discuss.htm
To join the discussion group all you need to do is send an e-mail to:
with the word subscribe in the subject field, followed by your full name and e-mail address. Any further information you might care to give about yourself can be added. You may unsubscribe at any time by sending an email with unsubscribe in the subject field.
JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN PSYCHOANALYTIC ASSOCIATION DISCUSSION GROUP
http://www.psychoanalysis.net/JAPA_Psa-NETCAST/
The JAPA forum conducts discussions of specified papers from the journal.
If you would like to ‘attend?the JAPA Psa-NETCAST please send an otherwise blank email with the word SUBSCRIBE in the subject line to JAPA_Attend@psychoanalysis.net .
Soon to appear are text-file archives for each of the discussions to date and easily viewable summaries of recent discussions written by Robert White, the current online moderator for the JAPA Psa-NETCAST. These summaries, an innovation created by Dr. White, significantly deepen the value of this exercise in online psychoanalytic scholarship.
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND PSYCHOTHERAPY egroup
psychoanalysis-and-psychotherapy@eGroups.com
Although there are existing groups and forums for psychoanalysis and others for psychotherapy, there has hitherto been none which seeks to bring together people interested in the psychoanalytic approach as employed in analysis, psychoanalytic psychotherapy and psychodynamic counselling, where the counsellor works in the transference. This egroup is designed to foster communication across those three communities, both in theory and in practice. I hope subscribers will draw the egroup’s attention to interesting publications and offer essays and reviews to the Vault (web site) and interesting links to other relevant groups and web sites. The intention is to facilitate communication, and messages should be offered in that spirit. Disagreement is fine, but sectarianism is not welcome.
The egroup's messages, calendar, document vault, and more are available on the web at
http://www.egroups.com/group/psychoanalysis-and-psychotherapy/
The egroup's email address for sending messages is
psychoanalysis-and-psychotherapy@egroups.com
To subscribe automatically, send an email to
psychoanalysis-and-psychotherapy-subscribe@egroups.com
Moderator: Robert M. Young
GROUP RELATIONS egroup
The Group Relations tradition inspired by W. R. Bion’s Experiences in Groups and developed at the Tavistock Centre and elsewhere by, e.g., A. K. Rice, Pierre Turquet, Gordon Lawrence, Eric Miller, David Armstrong and others, has led to the regular group relations conferences throughout the world and has been very influential in the study of groups and institutions. It also plays an important role in organizational consultancy. This forum is designed to foster discussion and to provide a congenial place for writings in this tradition to be available on the web.
To join the egroup, send an e-mail with no message to grouprelations-subscribe@egroups.com
The egroup's messages, calendar, document vault, and more are
available on the web at http://www.egroups.com/group/grouprelations/
Moderator: Robert M. Young
INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR THE PSYCHOANALYTIC UNDERSTANDING OF ORGANIZATIONS (ISPSO) email forum
ISPSO is the mailing list (email forum) for the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations. Its purpose is to foster communication among managers, consultants, and academics interested in the psychodynamics of organizations. Questions about the list, or suggestions for its development, should be addressed to Howard Schwartz
Any interested person may subscribe.
There is an extensive archive of papers given at successive annual conferences, along with news and events, list of members, photos, etc.
http://www.sba.oakland.edu/ispso
To subscribe send a message to:
Body of message: subscribe ISPSO
ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHODYNAMICS egroup
Here are some of the topics we are discussing:
-Covert and irrational organizational processes
-The psychology of conflict
-Narcissistic leadership
-Organizational resistance
-Projective processes in groups
-Action learning
-Power structure of the undercover organization, etc.
To learn more about the group, visit www.egroups.com/group/orgdyne
Moderator: Anil Behal, MSM, Ph.D.
List Facilitator, Orgdyne
Organizational Psychodynamics Discussion Group
http://www.egroups.com/group/orgdyne
OBJECT RELATIONS IN PSYCHOANALYSIS egroup
The inspiration for this egroup is an interest in Klein, Post-Kleinians, Winnicott, Fairbairn, Guntrip and other and more recent writers in the object relations tradition within psychoanalysis. There is an existing list on Bion and there is an object relations web site, but was formerly no forum, egroup or web site specifically dedicated to this particular stratum of psychoanalytic theory. This egroup and its associated web site are designed to fill this void.
Any topic within the broad domain mentioned above is welcome. So are interventions aimed at mounting critiques of this tradition, broadly conceived. However, civility must be the norm. In addition to theoretical and clinical issues, we are particularly interested in encouraging applications to the object relations tradition to literature, film and other aspects of culture and cultural studies. Submissions for essays for consideration for the web site should be sent to either of the forum moderators.
To join the egroup, send an e-mail with no message to
object-relations-subscribe@egroups.com
The egroup's messages, calendar, document vault, and more are available on the web at
http://www.egroups.com/group/object-relations/
Form Moderator: Robert M. Young
Co-moderator: Michael Szollosy
Research Student in English Literature & Psychoanalytic Studies University of Sheffield
MELANIE KLEIN AND KLEINIANISM egroup
This egroup is devoted to Klein, Bion and others influenced by her, as well as, Fairbairn, Winnicott and more general issues in the object relations tradition.
One of the aims on this egroup is that people should draw others?attention to new publications and offer comments on and reviews of them.
Subscription and comments by people critical of Kleinian ideas are welcome, as long as they are put in a civil and constructive way, but the main aim is to foster discussion among essentially people sympathetic to Kleinian ideas.
The egroup is also associated with the ejournal Kleinian Studies, the web site of which is at the human-nature.com web site:
To join the egroup, send an e-mail with no message to
kleinians-subscribe@egroups.com
The egroup's messages, calendar, document vault, and more are available on the web at http://www.egroups.com/group/kleinians/
Moderator: Robert M. Young
D. W. WINNICOTT egroup
As I said when setting up the Object Relations egroup, I assumed that the forum would be devoted to Klein, Fairbairn, Winnicott and more general issues in the object relations tradition. This has not occurred. By contrast, the Bion forum is thriving. I draw the conclusion that there is a place for a forum devoted to Winnicott and the people and ideas in the tradition which he began. Since his writings are so allusive and his ideas are hard to get clear, I believe that his work would greatly benefit from being mulled over by sympathetic people.
I will also in due course set up a D. W. Winnicott Home Page with references, links and other pertinent materials.
One of the things I hope will flourish on this egroup is that people will draw others? attention to new publications and offer comments on and reviews of them.
To join the egroup, send an e-mail with no message to
winnicott-subscribe@egroups.com
The egroup's messages, calendar, document vault, and more are available on the web at http://www.egroups.com/group/winnicott/
Moderator: Robert M. Young
W. R. BION email forum
The W.R. Bion email forum was originally established in anticipation of a conference in Italy in 1997 but has carried on as a place for discussion of his work. The web site includes a complete bibliography
Web site:
http://www.sicap.it/~merciai/bion97.htm
http://www.sicap.it/~merciai/spi.htm
(moderator)
To join forum, send email message to: majordomo@inrete.it
Body of message: subscribe bion97
FREE ASSOCIATIONS egroup
Free-associations@yahoogroups.com
This egroup is designed to serve as a forum for discussing the wider and deeper aspects of psychoanalysis as applied to the public sphere. It also aims to complement the quarterly journal of the same name and to discuss and catalyse essays, reviews and other contents, published or prospective. Its messages are moderated in order to discourage spams and other unsuitable postings.
Moderator
Robert M. Young
Group Email Addresses:
Subscribe: send a blank message to
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or go to http://groups.yahoo.com/
put free-associations in the search box, select that group and then sign up in the box at the right hand top of the screen. You can also explore what other Yahoo egroups exist by going to the http://groups.yahoo.com/ site.
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free-associations-info-owner@yahoogroups.com
About the journal:
Free Associations: Psychoanalysis, Groups, Politics, Culture, now is a, and arguably the, leading periodical on the non-clinical aspects of psychoanalysis and related psychodynamic approaches to psychotherapy, politics, groups, institutions, culture. It is also wide-ranging in its sympathies within the analytic tradition and in the styles and formats of the contributions it accepts, including personal accounts. The editors are willing to engage with potential contributors at an early stage of their thinking in order to help develop new ideas and ways of presenting them.
Free Associations is not the organ of any particular institution, orientation or tendency and is therefore not beholden to any orthodoxy, except perhaps a belief that critical self-reflection behoves any serious endeavour. The journal has, as a consequence, provided a platform for numerous critiques of various parts the helping professions, their theories and their institutional practices, especially the institutional arrangements of psychoanalytic trainings and organizations and other matters which are not often aired publicly.
Contributions of note have included interviews with John Bowlby, Cornelius Castoriadis, Jean Laplanche, Harold Searles, Michael Fordham, Vlamik Volkan, Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen, Jonathan Pedder, Nancy Chodorow.
There have been articles on John LeCarre, Franz Fanon, popular culture, ‘Alein? Shakespeare, torture, murderers, psychoanalysis in Eastern Europe, social dreaming, Bion on group relations, the politics of psychoanalysis, Laing and Cooper, male and female sexuality, perversion, fatherhood, trainings, eclecticism, training gays and lesbians, various aspects of the Oedipus complex, children’s fiction, Freud’s relations with Jung, the work of Harold Searles, psychoanalysis and art, iconoclasm, the politics of psychoanalytic institutions.
Essay reviews of noteworthy books are a regular feature.
Editor: Robert M. Young Managing Editor: Em Farrell
Editorial Board: David Armstrong, Donald Carveth, Sheila Ernst, Karl Figlio, Stephen Frosh, Susie Godsil, Lawrence Gould, Tirril Harris, Christoph Hering, R. D. Hinshelwood, Paul Hoggett, Elaine Jordan, Gordon Lawrence, Les Levidow, Meira Likierman, Adam Phillips, Barry Richards, Margaret Rustin, Michael Rustin, Ann Scott, Amal Treacher, Julia Vellicott, Margot Waddell, Valerie Walkerdine, Tara Weeramanthri, Jean White
Editorial Advisory Board: Peter Barham, Janine Chasseguet-Smirgel, Helmut Dahmer, Jean Bethke Elshtain, Andr?Green, James Grotstein, David Ingleby, Russell Jacoby, Joel Kovel, Terry A. Kupers, Jean Laplanche, Emilio Modena, Claire Pajaczkowska, Jean Radford, Harold Searles, Michael Vannoy Adams, Robert Wallerstein, Eugene V. Wolfenstein
The journal is published quarterly, and each issue contains 160 pages. Subscription may begin with any issue. Information about subscribing is at
PSYCHOANALYTIC STUDIES email forum
psychoanalytic-studies@sheffield.ac.uk
This forum was associated with the journal of the same name (which has recently ceased publication) and is devoted to the academic, scholarly discussion of all aspects of psychoanalysis.
Among the topics envisaged are: history, theory, cultural studies, film, literature, drama, critical theory, anthropology, art, feminism, gender studies, biography & autobiography, personality psychology, dynamic psychiatry, social science - anything which includes a psychoanalytic (or, broadly speaking, psychodynamic) dimension.
WWW site: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/psastud/index.html
If you wish to subscribe, send a message to: listproc@sheffield.ac.uk
Body of message: subscribe psychoanalytic-studies yourname
Moderator: Robert M. Young
PSYCHE ARTS EMAIL FORUM
http://www.academyanalyticarts.org/index.htmlAcademy
The Academy for the Study of the Psychoanalytic Arts
http://www.academyanalyticarts.org/
is pleased to announce its sponsorship of the Psyche Arts Email Discussion List. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with Lists, an email discussion list is an opportunity to join together and discuss topics or interests shared with other like-minded folks. The discussion takes place via email: you 'post' your responses via email and hear the responses from others via email. Everyone who subscribes to the List receives all of the posted responses and discussion.
"During the past quarter of a century, radical changes in the concept and meaning of psychoanalysis have been taking place in the analytic community.
The days of a monolithic psychoanalysis are fast fading as the positivist foundations of History, Knowledge and Truth have been called into question.
Truth, as it turns out, is not a fixed and universal absolute.
The Academy is pleased to sponsor this discussion of the Psyche Arts as a contribution to the discourse taking place within and around psychoanalysis, and between psychoanalysis and other bodies of knowledge such as philosophy, the humanities, the arts, semiotics, historiography... and others, a discourse where new Truths can be created, where new voices can be heard,
where new and different conceptual foundations for knowledge and human being can be formed, and where new and very different realities of psychoanalysis might be understood.
Please join in this discourse of the Psyche Arts ?..to consider or examine by comment, argument or informal debate the issues of contemporary psychoanalysis. Welcome!?nbsp;
For information on subscribing to the Psyche Arts Discussion List please go
to http://www.academyanalyticarts.org/discuss.html
Moderator: Roxanna P. Transit, Ph.D.
"Roxanna P. Transit" <UperRocks@AOL.COM>
Community Information Committee
Academy for the Study of the Psychoanalytic Arts
EUROPEAN PSYCHOTHERAPY egroup
Europsych is concerned to foster exchange of information about psychotherapy in Europe - East and West. We hope that subscribers will share information about psychotherapy facilities, training and research in their countries so that others can be better informed and so that ideas, writings and expertise can be shared.
Practitioners of all approaches to psychotherapy are welcome, and subscribers to the list are expected to relate constructively (or silently) to approaches other than their own. ‘All?includes psychodynamic, behavioural, brief, solution-focussed, gestalt, etc, as well as group therapy, art psychotherapy, drama therapy, dance therapy, etc.
It is hoped that people who join the list and are in a position to do so should sketch the situation in their country - numbers of practitioners and approaches, trainings, provision for payment, institutional and intellectual issues and whatever other topics may seem relevant and interesting.
A particularly interesting topic is the situation and development of psychotherapy in Eastern Europe and possibilities for mutual support, exchanges and the development of distance learning projects.
To join the egroup, send an e-mail with no message to
europsych-subscribe@egroups.com
The egroup's messages, calendar, document vault, and more are available on the web at http://www.egroups.com/group/europsych/
Moderator: Robert M. Young
PSYCHOSOMA email forum
Description: Psychosoma is an Internet discussion group for professionals who are interested in psychosomatic and behavioral medicine. Psychosoma focus on the interdisciplinary field concerned with the development and integration of behavioral and biomedical science knowledge and techniques relevant to the understanding of health and illness, and the application of this knowledge and these techniques to prevention, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation.
Forum Leaders: Dr. A. Rolnick
Davida Mone Rodrigues, M.D.
Membership: professionals who are interested in psychosomatic and behavioral medicine.
Size: 100
Messages per week: about 1
How to join: Send email to listserv@listp.apa.org
with the following message:
'SUBSCRIBE psychosoma' Your First Name Your Last Name
Web sites: Psychosoma homepage
PSYCHOTHERAPY AND COUNSELLING email forum
This forum is for general discussion of issues concerning all forms of psychotherapy and counselling, including issues relevant to the professions, clinical and theoretical problems, new publications, job vacancies and whatever else the subscribers may wish to raise.
The forum moderator is Steve Renee, Leeds Metropolitan University: S.Rennie@lmu.ac.uk
To subscribe, email to:
Body of message: subscribe psych-couns yourname
HUMAN RELATIONS, AUTHORITY AND JUSTICE: EXPERIENCES AND CRITIQUES email forum
This is an open, unmoderated forum designed to encourage the application of psychoanalytic and related psychodynamic approaches to the understanding of group, institutional, cultural and political processes.
The forum is related to an electronic journal of the same name based at
http://human-nature.com/hraj/home.html
Most of those who are working on this project are based in London, England and work in the helping professions, organizational consultancy and group relations, while some work with ethnic minorities, crisis intervention, sexual abuse and other applied spheres. What brings them together is in the conviction that primitive, unconscious, irrational processes play a much larger part in human relations than is usually supposed and that unless full account can be taken of these processes and unless ways can be found to understand and contain them the individual to international relations.
In particular, the group has made extensive use of the approaches to human relations developed by Wilfred Bion and others at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, summarised in his Experiences In Groups (London: Tavistock, 1961) and the tradition of group relations and organizational consultancy which has followed on from that work in the Tavistock and elsewhere, in particular, in group relations conferences at Leicester and elsewhere, e.g., America, Israel, Germany, Australia, India. Other approaches, both psychoanalytic and systemic, are also drawn upon, in particular, on the normal role of psychotic anxieties in contributing to problems in groups and institutions. Group relations events were held in Sofia in 1992 and 1996, and there was a founding conference of the project in 1995.
To subscribe, send the following command in the BODY of mail to
LISTSERV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU
SUB HRAJ yourfirstname yourlastname
For example:
SUB HRAJ Margaret Thatcher
Archives available at
http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/index.html
Owner: Robert M. Young
PSYCHIATRY, PHILOSOPHY AND SOCIETY email forum
Psychiatry, Philosophy and Society is a unique interdisciplinary forum which has been formed to encourage a critical analysis of psychiatric, psychotherapeutic and psychological practices, from a number of different perspectives. The aim of the forum is to draw attention to the ever more extensive and intensive web of 'psy-services' that proliferate within societies and to investigate their emergence, consequence, function and legitimacy
Challenging to practitioners and academics alike, this forum is designed to generate puzzlement and to encourage careful critical reflection upon the experience of patients and the practices of psychiatry and related fields of study.
To subscribe, send the following command in the BODY
of mail to LISTSERV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU
SUB PSYPHIL yourfirstname yourlastname
For example:
SUB PSYPHIL Bertrand Russell
EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY egroup
evolutionary-psychology@egroups.com
"The goal of research in evolutionary psychology is to discover and understand the design of the human mind. Evolutionary psychology is an approach to psychology, in which knowledge and principles from evolutionary biology are put to use in research on the structure of the human mind. It is not an area of study, like vision, reasoning, or social behaviour. It is a way of thinking about psychology that can be applied to any topic within it. In this view, the mind is a set of information-processing machines that were designed by natural
selection to solve adaptive problems faced by our hunter-gatherer ancestors. This way of thinking about the brain, mind, and behaviour is changing how scientists approach old topics, and opening up new ones."
To join send an e-mail to
evolutionary-psychology-subscribe@egroups.com
or join via the web site
The messages of the group are found at
http://www.egroups.com/list/evolutionary-psychology/
Moderator: Ian Pitchford