In this opening discussion of a series on Conceptions of Freedom, Adam Phillips, renowned writer, psychotherapist and exponent of psychoanalytic ideas, will reflect on what psychoanalysis has to tell us about the subjective experience of freedom, the development of personal agency, and the relationship between psychic structure and flexibility. Phillips, who has been called “one of the finest prose stylists at work in the language” for his numerous books on psychoanalysis and literature, will be in conversation with Josh Cohen, author of The Private Life, as well as a psychoanalyst and literary theorist.

The premise of the series is that 'freedom' is hardly a unitary category and that the theories we have to talk about it often don’t capture either the lived experience of 'being free', or the complex relationship between external liberty and internal autonomy. We would therefore like to think about the various meanings and templates of freedom, as these are conceived in various bodies of thought and practice: psychoanalytic, religious, scientific or artistic, as well as the more familiar traditions of political philosophy.

Conceptions of Freedom is conceived and chaired by Eva Hoffman, Visiting Professor at the UCL European Institute, in collaboration with the UCL Institute of Advanced Studies.

Conceptions of Freedom I: Psychoanalysis