St Vincent’s Psychodynamic Psychiatry Lectures 2024
Invitation for Expression of Interest
Over the past twenty years, I have given regular lectures to St Vincent’s psychiatry trainees on various topics such as trauma, personality disorders, and common psychiatric conditions, from a psychodynamic perspective. In 2023, these lectures were open to all psychiatry trainees in Australia and New Zealand, with encouraging level of interest. Last year, there were 36 lectures and, this coming year I expect to give about the same number of lectures. These lectures are not about psychotherapy; they provide a perspective that underpin most basic psychotherapeutic approaches in psychiatric practice. While they do not provide step by step guidance on ‘how to do psychotherapy’, they do provide a theoretical foundation for psychodynamic psychotherapy. More importantly, they provide a framework for psychodynamic thinking in psychiatric practice.
There will be 4 series, each consisting of 6 to 8 lectures:
- How the Mind Protects Itself: Introduction to Psychodynamic Concepts
- Trauma – PTSD, vicarious, transgenerational, intrapsychic etc.
- Psychodynamic approaches to common clinical conditions: psychosis, depression, mania, anxiety, eating disorder, autism, personality disorder etc.
- Psychodynamic Formulation & Psychotherapy (including classification, which treatment for whom, etc).
These lectures will be delivered online (via Zoom) at 8am Thursdays (AEST). It will finish close to 8.50am. These lectures will not be recorded because many clinical case examples are cited and I am not confident about the maintenance of confidentiality beyond the lecture itself, given the unlimited distribution of any recording.
These lectures should be of particular interest to Stage 1 trainees. Over the years, many later stages trainees have found it helpful to listen to these lectures again. About 10-20% of the lectures are updated with new information or clarification each new year.