Stephen Frosh
Professor of Psychology, Birkbeck, University of London
I'm Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychosocial Studies at Birkbeck, University of London. I've worked for many years in research on psychoanalysis and society, and indeed in psychosocial studies and questions of gender and racialised identities. Most recently, I've been particularly interested in questions of witnessing testimony and trauma.
EXPs by Stephen Frosh
Psychoanalysis has been conservative around many social issues. It’s always struggled to deal adequately with the issues of race and racism, colonialism or feminism which are so significant in our society today and indeed have been significant across the whole history of psychoanalysis.
Trauma was initially related to the enormous shift in people’s perceptions that came with the railways, with the change in speed, with the ways in which time had to be regulated across different places, with new ideas about space and with what people have called “the shock of the new”.
It’s very challenging, of course, to think of practical ways in which psychoanalysis can confront some of the huge issues that face us in contemporary society. Among these, I would place racist thought as being one of the primary and perhaps the primary destructive force.