London Lectures on Psychoanalysis 2025

Dr David Bell has taught at The Tavistock Clinic London and The British Psychoanalytic Society for over 25 years. This series of online lectures now allows these lectures to reach a wider audience.

This series, like previous courses, offers an overview of key psychoanalytic concepts, always keeping in mind their contemporary relevance.

You do not need to have attended the other courses in order to join this course.

Course Description

This online course offers a systematic study of the development of psychoanalytic theory always keeping in mind its contemporary relevance. Dr Bell offers a chronological overview of key Freudian concepts beginning with two introductory lectures that situate psychoanalysis within a broad cultural and epistemological context. This is followed by a systematic examination of key psychoanalytic concepts The course also explores the relation of psychoanalysis to culture, literature and socio-political theory.

Weekly Lecture Topics

• Lectures 1 & 2 (6, 13 March): What is Psychoanalysis? These two lectures will consider psychoanalysis as a body of knowledge of mind and explore its palce in the history of ideas and its relation to other disciplines particularly the sciences and humanities.
• Lecture 3 (20 March): Dreams and Symptoms
• Lecture 4 (27 March): Psychoanalysis and Sexuality. On Freud's Three Essays on Sexuality
• Lecture 5 (3 April): Freud's theory of Narcissism and its Contemporary Relevance
• Lecture 6 (10 April): Freud's Introduction to the Structural Model (the Ego and the Id)
• Lecture 7 (17 April): The Psychoanalytic Attitude (Freud's papers on technique)
• Lecture 8 (8 May): Freud's Theory of the Death Drive
• Lecture 9 (15 May): Psychoanalytic Reflections on Hamlet
• Lecture 10 (22 May): Culture and Psychoanalysis, Final Discussion

How much does it cost?

Entire course: £150** (approx. €179 or USD184)

Individual lectures: £20** (approx. €24 or USD24)

Applications are invited for subsidised places (e.g. for students or those faced with limited financial resources). For more information, please feel free to contact Dr Bell by clicking "Contact" at the bottom of this page.

** plus a service charge by eventbrite

Preliminary Reading

Attendees will gain access to reading sources after purchasing tickets.

• Freud, S. (1976) The interpretation of dreams.(1900). Especially Chapter 7: The psychology of the dream process
• Bell D (2003) Paranoia. London, Icon Books
• Wollheim, R. (1991) Freud.: A Mdern Master 2nd ed. London, Fontana.

One of the Freud Biographies (see below)

• Gay, P. (1988) Freud. A life for our times. London, J M Dent. Reprinted: New York, W Norton, 1998
• Jones, E. (1964) The life and work of Sigmund Freud. (Edited and abridged). Harmondsworth, Penguin

When will it be?

This course takes place over ten weeks with weekly lectures running between 6 March - 22 May 2025 (mid-term break on 24 April and 1 May).

Lectures will be held Thursdays, 6:00-7:30 GMT/BST* and include a 50 minute lecture and 30 minute discussion.

* London will switch to summer time on 30 March, which, depending on your location in the world, may shift the hour of day the lecture takes place for you.

I would like to participate, but I can't attend at that time.

After each lecture, anyone who has purchased a ticket will have access to an online recording of the session.

Is this course for me?

It is aimed at two kinds of student: those who have little prior knowledge of psychoanalysis and also those who are already have familiarity with psychoanalytic ideas (such as psychotherapists, psychiatrists, psychologists) but would like to revisit theory it in a structured and systematic way.