This ticket is for IN-HOUSE access to this event. Doors open at 6:30pm.
Please note this event will run for an hour and fifteen minutes from 19:00 - 20:15.
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Join us for this event in which Stephen Frosh discusses his recent book How to be Real: A Survival Guide in Challenging Times (published by Verso) with Lisa Appignanesi.
In How to Be Real, leading psychosocial thinker Stephen Frosh tackles one of our most urgent questions: how can we thrive in a world so troubling and confusing? Despite constant exhortations to be ‘authentic’ and ‘real’, our sense of reality is undermined by the complexity of the modern world. Getting in touch with reality means facing up squarely to this complexity.
Drawing on thinkers such as Freud, Winnicott and Klein, Frosh argues that we must look to what connects us. Authenticity depends on the quality of our human relationships. Consequently, the question of ‘how to be real’ has political as well as psychological and ethical implications. What seems merely disruptive can be the wellspring from which human depth and relational integrity arise.
By exploring childhood and the development of the self, the whys and wherefores behind our defences against reality, and the meaning of hate, Frosh shows how we can turn the ghosts that trouble us into ancestors that enrich our lives. We must be brave enough to seek solidarity with others and, finally, to find the humanity in death. How to Be Real is a bold and necessary guide to finding your radical self in difficult times.
Please click here if you would like to purchase an online ticket.
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Speakers:
Stephen Frosh is Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Birkbeck, University of London, where he was Pro-Vice-Master and also founding Head of the Department of Psychosocial Studies. He is the author of over twenty books and many papers on psychosocial studies and psychoanalysis. He is also co-editor of the Palgrave Handbook of Psychosocial Studies (2024) and of the Routledge International Handbook of Psychoanalysis and Jewish Studies (2025). His latest book How to be Real is published by Verso in autumn 2025.
Lisa Appignanesi OBE is the author of many books, including Everyday Madness, Mad, Bad, and Sad, and Freud’s Women (with John Forrester), a spring board for the Women and Freud Exhibition. A former Chair of the Freud Museum and the Royal Society of Literature, she was President of English PEN and is on the Executive Board of the Freud Museum Vienna.
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Tickets: £25
Freud Museum Members and Patrons receive 20% off the standard ticket price on all events, courses, conferences and On Demand programming.
A limited number of £10 bursary tickets are available for those under financial hardship. Please email perry@freud.org.uk to apply for a bursary.
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.
The event will be held on the first floor of the Museum during regular opening hours. Unfortunately the Freud Museum does not have step-free access at this time. Advance booking is highly recommended as capacity is limited.
