Cultural Encounters: Reflecting Psychoanalytically on the Psychological Nourishment Provided by Our Experiences with the Arts and Culture

We are fed at the breast of culture, not wholly but to differing degrees. What happens to us when we listen to a song, watch a film, encounter an art object or read a piece of literature? Noreen Giffney introduced the culture-breast, a new clinical psychoanalytic concept in her book, The Culture-Breast in Psychoanalysis: Cultural Experiences and the Clinic (Routledge 2021). She developed this concept to help psychoanalysts and psychotherapists to think about the formative and enduring unconscious impact of the arts and cultural experiences on our developing subjectivities and throughout our lives. The culture-breast foregrounds the particularity of our emotional and unconscious experiences with cultural objects (e.g., film, art, literature, music); how they become interwoven with the psychological textures of our personality. While we might be aware of the short-term impact of a cultural object – how it makes us think or feel in the moment – we are usually unaware of how the ephemeral aspect of this experience stays with us and becomes part of us; the unconscious aspect of the experience, in other words.

This event invites us to talk about our experiences with cultural objects, both recent and from earlier points in our lives. We will reflect together as a group on what our encounters with, attachments to, and psychological uses of cultural objects might tell us about ourselves, and how that knowledge might inform our clinical work. The event will feature a private screening of Cultural Encounters, a new animated short film about the emotional and psychological nourishment provided by our experiences with the arts and culture. The film is underpinned by psychoanalytic thinking and is directed by Noreen Giffney, a psychoanalytic psychotherapist and writer, and Allen Fatimaharan, an illustrator and animator. Noreen and Allen will also be joined by a panel of clinical practitioners and writers who will share an important cultural experience from their own lives and reflect on its importance from psychoanalytic perspectives.

 

Cultural Encounters (2026, 5 mins 10 secs, English language) [animated short film]. Directed by Noreen Giffney and Allen Fatimaharan. Written, produced, and voiceover by Noreen Giffney. Illustrated and animated by Allen Fatimaharan. Music and sound design by Lauren Doss. Edited and produced by Nicole Murray. Funding provided by Ulster University.

Schedule
5.30 pm – 6.00 pm: Registration
6.00 pm – 6.15 pm: Welcome & opening remarks
6.15 pm – 7.30 pm: Brief informal reflections from invited panel of speakers & small-group conversations about our cultural experiences
7.30 pm – 8.00 pm: Tea & coffee break
8.00 pm – 9.00 pm: Screening & discussion of Cultural Encounters
9.00 pm: Thanks & closing remarks

 

Recommended Preparatory Reading
Noreen Giffney, ‘The Culture-Breast: A New Clinical Concept’, New Associations 35 (2021): 22–23.
https://www.bpc.org.uk/download/4788/NA-35-Autumn_2021_landscape_v1.pdf

 

About the Speakers

Dr Noreen Giffney is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist based in County Donegal on the northwest coast of Ireland. She is the author of the book, The Culture-Breast in Psychoanalysis: Cultural Experiences and the Clinic (Routledge 2021), and the author and/or editor of additional articles and books on psychoanalysis, psychosocial studies, and the arts, culture, and mental health. She is the Joint Editor-in-Chief (with Emmanuelle Smith) of New Associations psychoanalytic magazine (British Psychoanalytic Council). She is a member of the creative team (led by Jill Bennett) for World Comes Alive (fEEL 2025), the first virtual reality experience underpinned by psychoanalytic thinking. She is the Director of ‘Psychoanalysis +’ (2013– ), an international, interdisciplinary initiative that brings together clinical, theoretical, and artistic approaches to, and applications of, psychoanalysis. She lectures and conducts research at Ulster University, Belfast. In her spare time, Noreen takes opera singing lessons.
https://www.ulster.ac.uk/staff/n-giffney

Allen Fatimaharan is an award-winning illustrator and animator, based in Oxfordshire, working mainly in children’s books, editorial illustration, and educational animation, as well as comics, motion graphics, and storyboards. A recent World Book Day Illustrator, he has illustrated a number of books, including My Hair written by Hannah Lee, A Dinosaur Ate My Sister written by Pooja Puri, and Llama Out Loud written by Annabelle Sami. Some of the literary festivals he has been invited to speak/draw at include the Hay Festival, Edinburgh International Book Festival, Cheltenham Literature Festival, Discovery Children's Story Centre, and a series of events for Southbank Centre’s ‘Imagine a Story’. He has worked with museums, magazines, journals, libraries, and universities. He has been the illustrator for the British Psychoanalytic Council’s New Associations psychoanalytic magazine since 2018. In his spare time, Allen loves reading and going on long walks rambling around the countryside.
https://allenfatimaharan.com/

*If you are a psychotherapist or counsellor residing in an active conflict zone, you are eligible to attend this event free of charge (regardless of whether you are a bpf member or not). Please email events@bpf-psychotherapy to enquire about a ticket.