Event

Immigration Panics, Borders and Eating disorders

An Open Seminar from the Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies

  • Wed 20 Feb 19

    17:00 - 18:30

  • Colchester Campus

    Room 4N.6.1

  • Event speaker

    Sue Kegerreis

  • Event type

    Lectures, talks and seminars

  • Event organiser

    Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies, Department of

  • Contact details

    Debbie Stewart

This talk draws analogies between some dynamics of eating disorders and those of recent panics about immigration and current calls for stronger border and immigration controls.

Building on psychoanalytic thinking about extremism and racism, I consider particular ways in which the rhetoric and underlying anxieties around immigration have strong links with the conscious and unconscious fantasies involved in anorexia.   

I suggest that interchange across boundaries is important for health in both the economy and the individual and that, while rational argument about immigration levels is important, the extreme views in current US/UK/Europe are fuelled largely by irrational elements which can best be understood using psychoanalytic ideas.  

The Speaker

Sue Kegerreis is Senior Lecturer at the Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies at the University of Essex where she is Course Lead for the MA Psychodynamic Counselling.  A psychotherapist (both child/adolescent and adult) by training, she has taught widely and practised in health, education and community settings as well as privately.

She has published numerous articles in professional journals, is Managing Editor of Psychodynamic Practice and her book Psychodynamic Counselling with Children and Adolescents appeared in 2010.  

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This event is free and open to all.

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