FRSS - “Only You Understand Me Completely”

All registrants will receive their link to join via ZOOM. Attendees will also receive access to the recording on the Monday after the event, available to watch back for 3 months.

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Abstract:

The psychoanalytic question of the uncanny takes on renewed urgency as the rapid advancement of machine learning enables the creation of “sentient” machines, blurring the boundary between the human and the machinic. This paper explores Freud’s (1919) theory of the uncanny under the themes of doubling and omnipotence of thoughts to understand our therapeutic relationship with AI chatbots. Building on this foundation, the author addresses Lacan’s (1963) and Laplanche’s (1999) formulation of the uncanny in configuring the psychic mechanism of trauma. The author also engages with Dolar’s (1991) and Fletcher’s (2013) critical insights on the role of culture and modernism in preserving, propagating, and reinventing the uncanny, followed by a theoretical dialogue between the uncanny and Winnicott’s (1953) concept of transitional phenomena as an optimistic counterpoint to the disruptive effects of the uncanny. A combination between theoretical analysis and case illustrations taken from published material involving Replika, Character.ai, and ChatGPT are used to exemplify our uncanny transference toward AI therapy bots. The author believes that the uncanny provides a well-articulated theoretical grounding to address the key question posed here: do AI therapy bots affirm the omnipotence of thoughts, or can they become transitional tools for emotional integration?

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Speaker:

Nisrina Larasati (Lara) is a graduate student at the UCL Psychoanalysis Unit. Her research explores psychoanalytic theories and techniques, religion and sociopolitical dynamics, and community mental health through Freudian, French, and British Independent psychoanalytic frameworks. She has taught introductory psychoanalytic seminars for creative workers in Indonesia and conducted studies on the psychological well-being of Muslim LGB youth and creative culture in Indonesia—the latter supported by the British Council’s Developing Inclusive and Creative Economies (DICE) programme.

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Tickets:

Suggested donation £10-£15.
Minimum donation £1.

The purpose of this event is to raise funds for the Freud Museum London, which receives no regular Government income. We are grateful to you for supporting our independent museum as generously as possible.

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The Freudian Research Seminar Series

The Freudian Research Seminar Series (FRSS) will convene virtually once every month and seeks to establish a forum which both cultivates and circulates new psychoanalytically informed research. We welcome both PhD students and Researchers across disciplines (inc. psychoanalysis, psychology, literature, art, film, history), to participate and form a community in which new ideas can be openly discussed and developed.

Each seminar will commence at 6pm (London) and last for an hour and thirty minutes, with thirty-forty minutes for the paper followed by a discussion. Seminars will be recorded for those registered to playback for 3 months but please note they will not be later made available on the On Demand service.

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Schedule:

Wednesday 22 October – Kimberly Lamm, Fashioning the Ego as Home: Black Women Writers and Clothing

Thursday 27 November – Helen Rose, No Fixed Abode, No Fixed Support? The Weaponization of Homelessness in an Era of Austerity and NHS Decline

Thursday 11 December – Kazue Niki, Staging the Finale: Freud’s London Garden as a Constructed Space

Wednesday 28 January – Faye Mather, A Return to the Mother – on the transition from Freudian fathers to Kleinian mothers in psychoanalysis and Athenian tragedy

Thursday 26 February – Arjet Pervizi, Renting Within Oneself: A psychoanalytic exploration of home – between rent and ownership, transience, and the fantasy of belonging in the psychoanalytic subject

Thursday 26 March – Callum Blades, The Unhomely Mind: Conspiracies as a Defence Against Psychic Displacement

Thursday 23 April – Nisrina Larasati, “Only You Understand Me Completely”: Contemporary Investigation of the Uncanny in AI Therapy Bots

Thursday 21 May – Sam Bolton, I Cannot Turn Away from Your Home: A Melancholic Reformulation of Transgender Dysphoria

Thursday 25 June – Anna-Peter Magyarlaki & Eric Harper, Homes, closets and wombs: Psychoanalytic reflections on home-making and homelessness for queer, trans and gender nonconforming people

Thursday 30 July – Huaiyuan “Susanna” Zhang, The Ego Is Not Master in Its Own House: Levinas, Freud, and the Ethical Unhousing of Oedipus