Program of Studies 2025
All seminars delivered via Zoom
To enrol please contact the seminar leaders
The BCPS offers a three-year seminar program in psychoanalytic theory that follows the following cycle:
Year 1: Reading Freud
Year 2: Psychoanalytic Theories of Object Relations
Year 3: Contemporary Psychoanalytic Theory
The cycle offers a comprehensive introduction to psychoanalytic theory and ideas, and participants are encouraged to consider completing all three years.
It is possible to join at any stage in the cycle. No previous experience is required.
THEORETICAL SEMINARS
2025 Contemporary Psychoanalytic Theory
The BCPS 2025 seminar program on Contemporary Psychoanalytic Theory examines key contemporary theorists in psychoanalysis who have been influential in the development of psychoanalytic ideas and clinical practice. The seminar runs for four terms of eight weeks each over the year and generally aligns with school terms.
Participants are encouraged to enrol for the whole year. No previous experience is required.
Term 1: “Growing an Individual Mind”: The work of Neville Symington and Fred Busch
Time: Mondays 6.30pm to 8.00pm AEST (on Zoom)
Dates: Monday 3rd February to Monday 24th March 2025
Seminar Leaders: Dr Thea Van Hees and Dr Yaser Baqir
Fee: $500 per term
For the first term of Contemporary Psychoanalysis, we will focus on two internationally recognised psychoanalysts who have spent their professional lives developing an understanding of what helps patients to grow individual minds. Fred Busch describes various turning points in working with patients and how he finally found a new way of working that helped patients discover the stories they never knew that drove them and helped them to find their own minds. The other analyst is Neville Symington. His book, The Growth of the Mind, complements the work of Busch. On the back cover he states how the professional needs to develop an awareness of knowledge he possesses, strengthening it in the process and allowing it to become a foundational source of inspiration. He suggests that the act of understanding has a transformative function. We would reflect on the relevance of these ideas on our clinical work.
For enrolment and further information contact either of the seminar leaders:
Dr Thea van Hees dvanhees@bigpond.net.au or 0418 871 936
Dr Yaser Baqir dryaserbaqir@hotmail.com or 0438 990 201
Term 2: Psychoanalytic Psychosomatics: Evolution in the Understanding and Treatment of Somatic Disorders
Time: Mondays 6.30pm to 8.00pm AEST (on Zoom)
Dates: Monday 28th April to Monday 23rd June 2025 (Not including 5th May)
Seminar Leader: Dr Jaime Yasky
Fee: $500 per term
From its inception psychoanalysis has been prolific in the psychosomatic field, but the understanding and treatment of somatic disorders has significantly evolved in the last 60 years. This seminar revises this evolution by identifying and visiting key problems and ideas that underpin current approaches to the psychosomatic field.
For enrolment and further information please contact the seminar leader:
Dr Jaime Yasky jaimeyasky@gmail.com or 0468 571 140
Term 3: Contemporary Winnicott
Time: Mondays 6.30pm to 8.00pm AEST (on Zoom)
Dates: Monday 21st July to Monday 8th September 2025
Fee: $500 per term
Seminar Leaders: Dr Yaser Baqir and Miriane de Toledo Heinrich
Donald Winnicott was an important psychoanalyst of the British Independent Tradition. His understanding and conceptualization of the significance of the infant’s early emotional experience has influenced psychoanalytic thinking over the decades. His contribution to the understanding of childhood, adolescence and adult life has had a profound influence. In this term we will be reading his important papers and the current understanding of his concepts.
For enrolment and further information please contact either of the seminar leaders:
Dr Yaser Baqir dryaserbaqir@hotmail.com or 0438 990 201
Miriane de Toledo Heinrich 0452 672 724
Term 4: Elena Molinari’s Binocular Vision: An Inquiry into Psychoanalytic Techniques and Field Theory
Time: Mondays 6.30pm to 8.00pm AEST (on Zoom)
Dates: Monday 13th October to Monday 1st December 2025
Seminar Leaders: Dr Thea Van Hees and Sigrid O’Callaghan
Fee: $500 per term
In term 4 of Contemporary Psychoanalytic Theories, we will introduce the concept of field theory and how its evolvement allows access to the inaccessible unconscious. This is the area where early trauma may have occurred. To describe how this process can be understood using the concept of binocular vision i.e. what is experienced at a conscious level simultaneously evokes something unconscious, will become understandable as we read the book by Elena Molinari. It is through case material and its association with art, that the concept takes shape. Art is used as a form of nonverbal communication of the conscious an unconscious process.
Reference: Binocular Vision – An Inquiry into Psychoanalytic Techniques and Field Theory by Elena Molinari (Routledge, 2024)
For enrolment and further information please contact either of the seminar leaders:
Dr Thea van Hees dvanhees@bigpond.net.au or 0418 871 936
Sigrid O’Callaghan sigridoc@aapt.net.au or 0421 802 809
INFANT OBSERVATION
Infant Observation (Reflective group)
Time: Wednesdays 6.30pm to 7.45pm AEST (on Zoom)
Seminar Leader: Dr Robyn Leigh
Fee: $75 per weekly seminar
This is a one- or two-year course of weekly seminars where participants bring detailed accounts of their weekly observations of an infant in his or her home environment from birth onwards. The course aims to develop observational skills and an understanding of the infant’s emerging relationships. This course is one of the best ways of learning about the observer’s own involvement in clinical situations.
This is an ongoing weekly seminar of 11/4 hours. Participants are expected to enrol for at least one year. There is no prerequisite for this course.
Term dates for 2025 are as follows:
Term 1 Wednesday 5th February to Wednesday 16th April (11 weeks)
Term 2 Wednesday 30th April to Wednesday 4th June (6 weeks)
Term 3 Wednesday 9th July to Wednesday 24th September (12 weeks)
Term 4 Wednesday 8th October to Wednesday 17th December (11 weeks)
There will be a maximum of three participants in this seminar.
For enrolment and further information contact the seminar leader:
Dr Robyn Leigh leighrobyn67@gmail.com or call 07 3832 5159 or 0404 499 044
Reading Seminar on Infant Research
Term 4: “Something Before and Beyond Words”: Intersubjectivity in the First 12 Months of Life
Time: Thursdays 6.30pm to 8.00pm AEST (on Zoom)
Dates: Thursday 9th October to Thursday 27th November 2025
Seminar Leaders: Dr Robyn Leigh and Miriane de Toledo Heinrich
Fee: $500
In this seminar the notion of intersubjectivity and the experience of “something before and beyond words” will be considered in the context of the mother-baby relationship and interactions in the first 12 months of life. These concepts will be discussed using the infant research literature including the works of Daniel Stern, Ed Tronick and Beatrice Beebe among others. The seminar will likely appeal to both those working with mothers and babies and those working with the baby and infantile mental states in adult patients.
For enrolment and further information please contact either of the seminar leaders:
Dr Robyn Leigh leighrobyn67@gmail.com or call 07 3832 5159 or 0404 499 044
Miriane de Toledo Heinrich 0452 672 724