WPF Therapy: Fashion and Psychoanalysis with Anouchka Grose

Taking inspiration from their neighbours at the Fashion and Textile Museum on Bermondsey Street, WPF Therapy’s online event Fashion and Psychoanalysis with Anouchka Grose will take place on Saturday 21st May from 10am-11.30am, focusing on the phenomenon of fashion, the clothing of psychoanalysts, and the kinds of behaviours around fashion you might come across in the consulting room.

In psychoanalytic literature fashion appears again and again as something ambiguous, both good and evil; something that shares with the psychological symptom a structure of enjoyment and suffering, pleasure and pain, irritation and relief. On the one hand clothes can supposedly help you out with embodied life, conceal the bits you feel ashamed of and accentuate the bits you’re proud of. But then again, fashion isn’t really about clothes in any practical sense, but about the endless replacement of clothes by other clothes — and especially the vilification of certain styles and the elevation of others. Fashion is therefore a system that’s perfect for producing the kind of anxiety that keeps people captivated — you have to stay constantly attuned or risk committing a shameful faux pas.   

This event is part of WPF Therapy’s year round programme of both in-person and online workshops and lectures.

www.wpf.org.uk / email events@wpf.org.uk