The Zurich Lab’s New Research Initiative Explores Depth Psychology to Engage Contemporary Culture
Zurich, Switzerland (PRWEB) October 06, 2014 -- The Zurich Lab[oratory] is pleased to announce the launch of TZL/R, an international center for research that promotes the study of depth psychology in light of contemporary culture, politics, and society. By facilitating interdisciplinary exchanges between individuals from all walks of life, the center hopes to extend the reach of psychoanalysis beyond professional and clinical settings.
“We want to encourage communication among practitioners, analysts, training candidates, and academics, but also engage a wider audience, really anyone who might harness the exploratory energy of depth psychology to reframe a problem or situate a project,” says Sean McGrath, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Memorial University of Newfoundland, who is heading the initiative. He cites philosophy, comparative literature, religious studies, sociology, clinical psychology, cognitive science, and neuroscience as examples of fields of inquiry that still maintain an interest in depth-psychological paradigms. He admits that the list is not exhaustive. “We’re open to surprising intersections.”
In a statement published this week on The Zurich Lab’s website http://www.zurichlab.org, TZL/R defines depth psychology broadly as “all psychologies of the unconscious, all psychologies of drives, and all psychologies of personality.” The budding community does not officially align itself with any one psychoanalytical school—be it Freudian or Lacanian, Jungian or Post-Jungian, Kleinian or Bionian, Existential or Logotherapeutic—but with all of them. “We’re not interested in insular infighting,” adds McGrath. “It’s time for psychoanalysis to reengage the world.”
Co-founder Evangelos Tsempelis predicts that The Zurich Lab’s research arm will kindle as much participant excitement as has the Lab itself. “We’re inviting people to explore the unexplored with us,” he explains. “The adventure of insight involves encounter as much as introspection, which is why we celebrate collaboration.” To date, The Zurich Lab has hosted creative psychoanalysis-on-the-street events in Berlin, Zurich, Barcelona, and New York City. “The energy out of these sessions is dazzling,” he grins. “There is great movement when Psyche wakes.”
The Zurich Lab[oratory] is a Swiss-registered non-profit organization based in Zurich, Switzerland. http://www.zurichlab.org
Evangelos Tsempelis, The Zurich Lab[oratory], http://www.zurichlab.org, +49 1604208921, [email protected]
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