The significance of Freud’s early work in the fields of sexual abuse and trauma will be the focus of the Freud Memorial Lecture, hosted by the Centre for Psychoanalytic Studies this month.

Valerie Sinason, who has been director of the Clinic for Dissociative Studies for the last ten years, will be speaking on ‘What have they done to you, poor child?'

Using examples from Freud’s clinical work in learning disability, abuse and dissociative identity disorder, Valerie Sinason will draw attention to key theoretical concepts on memory and trauma in Freud’s early work that aids her as a clinician.

A poet, writer, child and adult psychotherapist and adult psychoanalyst, Valerie Sinason was previously consultant psychotherapist at the Tavistock and St George’s Hospital Medical School. She is president of the Institute for Psychotherapy and Disability, and an honourable consultant psychotherapist at Cape Town Child Guidance Clinic.

The Annual Freud Memorial Lecture, supported by the Freud family through Paterson Marsh Ltd, will be held in the Lakeside Theatre on Friday 22 May at 6pm. Admission to the lecture is free and open to the public but please register to secure a place, telephone 01206 873640 or e-mail cpsadmin@essex.ac.uk or online at: www.essex.ac.uk/centres/psycho/news/FML2009.htm

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Notes to editors:
The Annual Freud Memorial Lecture 2009, ‘What have they done to you, poor child?’ with Valerie Sinason as speaker, is at 6pm on Friday 22 May in the University’s Lakeside Theatre. Admission to the lecture is free and open to the public but please register to secure a place, telephone 01206 873640 or e-mail cpsadmin@essex.ac.uk or online at: www.essex.ac.uk/centres/psycho/news/FML2009.htm

For more information, please contact the University of Essex Communications Office on telephone: 01206 872807 or e-mail: comms@essex.ac.uk