When Societies Lose Their Minds

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The British Psychotherapy Foundation (bpf) brings together three leading thinkers—Lord John Alderdice, Dr Gwen Adshead and Josh Cohen—to explore violence at both an individual and societal level. Drawing on psychoanalysis, psychiatry, politics and culture, the panel will consider how people and communities can become caught up in destructive forms of collective feeling, and what may help restore the capacity for reflection, responsibility and repair.

Lord Alderdice’s work on conflict resolution, including the Good Friday Agreement, raises a difficult question: how can people learn to disagree without seeking to destroy one another? Dr Gwen Adshead’s work asks us to confront the human capacity for cruelty, including the ways trauma, attachment and mental states can shape violence. Josh Cohen's work examines how collective righteous anger may defend against more vulnerable feelings—such as sadness, pity, humiliation and loss—and contribute to mindless destructiveness.

Chaired by Dr Jean Knox of the University of Exeter, our panel will explore how societies create enemies onto whom they project what they fear or hate in themselves, how war can offer a seductive but dangerous sense of unity, and why it can be so difficult to acknowledge our own potential for violence.

An invited in-person audience will be able to put questions to the panel and join a vital conversation about violence, accountability and the conditions that make thoughtful action possible.

 

About the Speakers:

John, Lord Alderdice is a psychoanalytic psychiatrist by profession, a Liberal Democrat life member of the House of Lords at Westminster (where he sits on the Select Committee for International Relations and Defence) and a former president, and now President of Honour, of Liberal International, the world federation of some 100 liberal political parties.

As leader of the Alliance Party, he was a key negotiator of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, then appointed the first Speaker of the new Northern Ireland Assembly and, subsequently, one of four international commissioners overseeing security normalization.

He is now a Senior Research Fellow at Harris Manchester College, Oxford, an Honorary Fellow at Pembroke College, Oxford, a Visiting Fellow at Jesus College, Cambridge, Professor of Practice at both Queens University Belfast and the University of Wales Trinity St David, and a recipient of many honorary degrees and professorships from various universities around the world. He lectures, consults, and writes on intractable violent political conflict, religious faith and fundamentalism, and the problems of indigenous peoples. He is the founding chair of The Concord Foundation.

 

Dr Gwen Adshead is a forensic psychiatrist and psychotherapist. She currently works part time for West London NHS Trust at Broadmoor Hospital; and is associate professor in psychotherapy at the University of Exeter. She trained at St Bartholomew’s hospital, St George’s hospital and the Institute of psychiatry. She holds a master’s degree in medical law and ethics, a Master of Science Degree in Mindfulness based Cognitive Therapy from Oxford University and is a Qualified member of the Institute of group analysis. She was awarded two honorary Doctorates by St George’s Hospital medical school; a visiting fellowship at Yale school of Law & psychiatry and was associate professor of psychiatry at Gresham College for three years. In 2013 she was awarded the President’s Medal for her work in mental health ethics, and in 2024 was awarded Honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. She was the invited BBC Reith Lecturer in 2024, speaking on the theme of violence.

Gwen has published over 300 academic papers and book chapters on a number of topics: including childhood trauma and later risk of violence, attachment theory applied to offending and parenting, ethical issues in mental health, and personality disorder in perinatal settings. She also is interested in enhancing public understanding of mental health and offending, and she appears regularly on podcasts and public radio; including being a castaway on Desert island Discs in 2010.

In 2021, she published her first book for a general audience called ‘The Devil You Know’ which was co-authored with Eileen Horne. It was published by Faber in 2021 and was serialised on radio 4’s Book of the Week. It was a Sunday Times best-seller and was Waterstones’ non-fiction book of the month in July 2022 and has sold over 100000 copies across the world in several different languages. She and Eileen completed a new work about recovery from trauma called ‘Unspeakable’ which was published in February 2026 and was once again Radio 4’s Book of the Week.

 

Professor Josh Cohen is a psychoanalyst in private practice and a Fellow of the British Psychoanalytical Society, from which he recently received an annual prize for Outstanding Contributions to the Dissemination of Psychoanalysis. He is Emeritus Professor of Literary Theory at Goldsmiths University of London and the author of many essays and books on psychoanalysis, culture and modern thought. He has published essays and reviews in, among others, The Guardian, TLS, New Statesman, Granta and Yale Review. He appears regularly on the radio. He teaches both clinical and theoretical seminars across different psychoanalytic trainings. His books include How to Read Freud, The Private Life, Not Working, How to Live. What to Do, Losers and most recently, All the Rage. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

 

Event Structure:

The evening will start with an introduction by Jean Knox, followed by a panel discussion about their own approaches to the question "Why do societies become violent?". Then we open up to questions and discussions.

 

Please note you will be sent the Zoom link closer to the time

 

*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.