Buried Alive in the Blues - Psychotherapy in the Anthropocene
Schedule
Sat Sep 05 2026 at 09:30 am to 05:30 pm
UTC+01:00Location
Cecil Sharp House | London, EN
A one-day conference organised by The Philadelphia Association, speakers include: Dr Timothy Morton (online) & Maria TurriAbout this Event
Sat 5th September 2026 (9.30am - 5.30pm) 'Buried Alive in the Blues' is a one day in-person conference at Cecil Sharpe House, London NW1, organised by The Philadelphia Association. A range of engaging speakers will include Dr Timothy Morton (online), Maria Turri (of the Critical Psychiatry Network), Anatasios Gaitanidis, Professor Del Loewenthal and a host of speakers on themes related to ecological devastation in the age of the Anthropocene and Capitalocene and its implications for psychotherapy and psychiatry. How do we live and practice in a world which as Morton has said - the end has already occured?
As well as a range of speakers there will panel discussions, Q&A and lunch will be provided. There will also be a post-conference evening reception/gathering at The Spread Eagle Pub (NW1 7NB). We also plan to host follow-up events later in the year at The Philadelphia Association's base in Hampstead NW3.
Other information
As human action is responsible for the ecological devastation we face, our planetary age has been called the Anthropocene, even the Capitalocene, situating our species as central to the forces that are decimating it, an ‘organon of extinction’ to borrow Ray Brassier’s haunting phrase.
We are facing a ‘polycrisis’ so multifaceted that to get our bearings at all seems to be an impossible demand: the rise of technofeudalism, protests quashed through forceful government denials, anxiety levels rising faster than the ocean, which also rises and may yet drown our sorrows. As Franco Berardi puts it, the psychosphere is plunging into geopsychosis, a massive dehiscence between the human world, and the still living Earth which ecologically we cannot separate from. One aspect is a huge rise in people receiving psychiatric diagnoses, and seeking some form of care, mostly met with an ever escalating use of largely discredited psychiatric drugs which carry their own problems.
We are asking how to respond to this, in our practice, our thinking, our community spaces, our creative endeavours. We are inviting contributors from multiple disciplines, including philosophy, psychotherapy, the arts and The Critical Psychiatry Network, with a focus on psychotherapeutic practices and mental health provision. This conference aims to bring people together to foster links of solidarity, to reflect, discuss and to try and find a way through or even out, when we’re buried alive in the blues...
THE PHILADELPHIA ASSOCIATION was founded in 1965 by R. D. Laing and colleagues to challenge established ways of thinking about and responding to distress. For more than fifty years we have offered both an open-minded alternative approach to psychotherapy that is unique in Britain, and community houses for those living through a crisis or other impasse in their life.www.philadelphia-association.org.uk
Where is it happening?
Cecil Sharp House, 2 Regent's Park Road, London, United KingdomGBP 70.00 to GBP 100.00
