Course — Everyday Analysis

HOW TO ENJOY YOUR SYMPTOM: REPRESSION, CATHEXIS, SYLLOGISM
A three-part course by Helen Rollins and Alfie Bown

This is a 3-part course to run in, December 2025, January 2026 and February 2026. We will meet once a month online. The course is taught by Alfie Bown and Helen Rollins. Sessions will be live and recorded for those in different time zones and with other commitments.

Signing up for the course also means that you will receive a pamphlet in the post - this is the course text.

In this Everyday Analysis course on psychoanalysis, we tackle the question of self-help. How does the popular capitalist discourse of self-help today relate to the practices and ideas of psychoanalysis? Could psychoanalysis be the anti-self-help? If so, how can it help us? In this course we discuss three concepts over three sessions: repression, cathexis and syllogism. These key conepts might help us come to terms with the things we hate (repression), the things we like (cathexis) and the contradictory world we live in (syllogism). They can help us enjoy our symptoms, without falling into the pitfalls of the individualistic self-help discourse that dominates in bookshops and on the internet today.

Next session:
December 27, 2025

EVERYDAY ANALYSIS

Edited by
Alfie Bown
Helen Rollins
Jag Bhalla
Gilbert May