Holding the Third: Exploring Paternal Functioning

ABOUT

Our rich and diverse programme will have a strong theoretical and clinical focus and will apply our theme to the broader social and political context of South Africa.

Saturday will include our 3 keynote speakers - Tessa Dooms (Political Activist and Sociologist), Rui Aragão Oliveira (Training Analyst with the Portuguese Psychoanalytic Society) and Thomas Burkhalter (Educational Psychologist and SAPI member). Our last session of the day will focus on the role of supervision and will include inputs by Rui Aragão Oliveira as well as Mary-Anne Smith (SAPA Training Analyst).

Sunday will start with a panel discussion focusing on the recent inquest into the torture and murder of political activist Imam Haron by the South African apartheid government in 1969. The panel will include Diane Sandler (SAPA Psychoanalyst), Haroon Gunn-Salie (Artist), Odette Geldenhuys (Human Rights Lawyer), Khalid Shamis (Film-maker) and Jonathan Shapiro (Cartoonist and Political Satirist). The day will conclude with a plenary session.

Ticket prices:

SAPI members: R1800

SAPC members: R2000

non-SAPI members: R2600

SAPI exco and SAPI board members: R900

CPD points applied for

SPEAKER PROFILES

Tessa Dooms

Tessa Dooms is a Director at the Rivonia Circle political think tank and author of the recently released book 'Coloured' that explores identity politics in South Africa. Trained as a Sociologist, development practitioner and political analyst, Tessa started her career in academia. She has worked in diverse sectors including government, NGOs and the private sector, where she did work that aligns the objectives of various institutions and programmes with developmental objectives for the advancement of Africa. She has 15 years of experience as a development worker, trainer and researcher with expertise on governance, youth development and innovation and has worked in over 10 African countries. In 2015 she was appointed to the National Planning Commission to advise the President on the implementation of the National Development Plan of South Africa. Tessa is a Trustee of the Kagiso Trust. She holds a Master of Arts from the University of the Witwatersrand.

Rui Aragão Oliveira

Rui Aragão Oliveira is a full member and Supervising Analyst of the Portuguese Psychoanalytical Society (PPS) / International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA). He has a PhD in Clinical Psychology, and has taught in both public (Évora University) and private universities (Instituto Superior de Psicologia Aplicada, Lisbon). Rui is the former president of the PPS (2016-2019), former director of the Training Committee of the PPS (2020-2022), past editor-in-chief of the Portuguese Psychoanalytical Review (2013-2015) and past IPA editor of Psychoanalysis Today (2014-2017). He is a member of the IPA Electoral Committee (2020-2023) and a member of the EPF House Committee. Rui teaches at the Psychoanalytical Institute in Lisbon and has been working with clinical groups (IPA 3 Level Model). He is also a consultant to the IPA Clinical Observation Committee. He has published on the theory of technique, paternal function, masculinity, and clinical issues. In 2022 he edited the “Reflections on contemporary psychoanalytic thought: Lisbon Lectures”. His new book (October 2023) is about the metapsychology of pleasure, clinical notes and the pleasure of the psychoanalyst, O livro do prazer: reflexões psicanalíticas.

Jenni Allen

Jenni Allen is a Psychotherapist, Psychoanalyst and SAPA Training Analyst. She grew up in the Eastern Cape where she completed her MA Clinical Psychology at Rhodes University, Makhanda. She was part of the first cohort to train as an Analyst in Cape Town, South Africa. Jenni is passionate about her involvement in SAPA committee, teaching and training activities and is interested in a wide variety of aspects of psychoanalysis - both clinical and theoretical. Jenni has a full time private practice in Cape Town and in her spare time is passionate about literature, Argentine tango and tennis.

Thomas Burkhalter

Thomas Burkhalter is an Educational Psychologist who has worked primarily as a psychotherapist, supervisor and consultant in private practice, but also comes with extensive experience of working in a community clinic. He co-facilitates groups gathered around writing psychoanalytically and is on the Training Committee of the SAPI College of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy. He has researched and written on disability, masculinities, fatherhood, subjectivity and identity positioning more broadly, with a specific interest in (counter)transference and relational notions of reflexivity. His Ph.D. focused on the play of masculinities in psychotherapeutic practice and praxis and he has presented and published in journals both locally and internationally on these topics. Theoretically, he draws on psychoanalysis, critical theory, poststructuralism and the postcolonial, within the psychosocial.

Yvette Esprey

Dr. Yvette Esprey is a Clinical Psychologist with a small psychoanalytically oriented practice in Johannesburg and is a Senior Lecturer and Clinical Supervisor at Wits University. As a white-identified clinician practicing in South Africa, Yvette believes deeply in the importance of having an identity-conscious practice. A primary area of interest is in the intersection of identity and clinical practice, and in particular on the impact of race, gender and sexual orientation on professional and clinical work. She has taught and published widely in this area. 

Mary-Anne Smith

Mary-Anne Smith is a Clinical Psychologist, Psychoanalyst and SAPA Training Analyst. She is a member of the SAPA and SAPI Board and is currently the President. Mary-Anne is passionate about the development of psychoanalysis in South Africa. The relevant, rigorous and context-specific use of psychoanalysis that proves itself in the lived experience as well as the academic pursuit is important to Mary-Anne and she has a special interest in a psychoanalytic understanding of race and climate anxiety.

Diane Sandler

Diane Sandler is a Psychoanalyst and Psychotherapist in private practice in Cape Town treating adults, children and parents. When she was young, in her 3rd year psychology at UCT in 1981, she wrote the first South African psychological study on solitary confinement and sensory deprivation with reference to South African political detainees. She was a founder member of the Cape Town based Detainees Parents Support Committee and the Detainees Support Committee and was subsequently employed as the researcher on the project, "Detention and Torture in South Africa" based at the Institute of Criminology at UCT, in 1983. A report was produced in 1985 (Don Foster and Diane Sandler) and a book "Detention & Torture in South Africa: Psychological, legal and historical studies" by Don Foster, Dennis Davis and Diane Sandler (David Philip Publishers 1987).

Odette Geldenhuys

I discovered the power of stories as a young child; and as an adult, stories are at the heart of what I do, both as a public interest lawyer and as a documentary filmmaker. As a documentary filmmaker, I have veered towards telling stories of ordinary people who are inspirational and/or do extraordinary things, e.g. being pavarotti about Elton Nkanunu and his friends, Grietjie van Garies about Grietjie Adams and Here be Dragons about George Bizos SC. These films, as well as The Shore Break, which I co-produced, have been screened in different parts of the world, and have received various awards. As a public interest lawyer, representing individuals, groups and communities, who are entitled to the rights and protections of our Constitution, I work with people, their journeys and their truths. The scope of my work has been broad, including a focus on land reform and restitution issues, introducing due process for people who are indebted, and assisting families to seek the truth about what had been hidden by apartheid. For the last decade, I have been a full-time pro bono lawyer with Webber Wentzel and the head of our pro bono team for the last four years.

Khalid Shamis

Khalid Shamis is a documentary director, producer and editor with a filmmaking practice spanning more than 25 years. His directing work includes Imam and I (2011) and The Colonel’s Stray Dogs (2021). Khalid works and researches as a doctoral fellow at the Centre for Humanities Research at the University of the Western Cape. His practice is strongly dedicated to the pedagogy of independent filmmaking and story construction in Africa as well as teaching and consulting in and outside film institutions and organized frameworks. Khalid

runs Rough Cut Lab Africa, a continent-wide initiative supporting independent documentary films in post-production.

Haroon Gunn-Salie

Haroon Gunn-Salie is an award-winning artist and activist who believes art has potential to effect change in societies. Gunn-Salie’s multidisciplinary practice draws focus to forms of collaboration based on socially-engaged dialogue and exchange.

Zapiro

ZAPIRO (aka Jonathan Shapiro) is South Africa’s best-known and most-awarded cartoonist. His career began in the late 1980s and today he is recognised nationally and internationally as an influential social commentator through his political cartooning. He works as the editorial cartoonist for Daily Maverick. Previously he was editorial cartoonist for the Sunday Times, the Mail & Guardian, The Times, the Sowetan and for Independent Newspapers. He has published 28 best-selling annuals as well as 4 special collections The Mandela Files, VuvuzelaNation, Democrazy and WTF: Capturing Zuma—A Cartoonist’s Tale. Resulting from hard-hitting cartoons about President Jacob Zuma, he has twice been sued by Zuma for defamation. At the end of 2012, Zuma dropped one of the lawsuits (a R5 million claim over the 2008 Lady Justice cartoon). In May 2013, Zuma dropped the earlier R10 million lawsuit from 2006. Zapiro has held solo cartoon exhibitions internationally and many in South Africa. He has won numerous international and SA awards and was voted by magazines Jeune Afrique, New Africa and Credit Suisse as one of the most influential people in Africa. In 2005 the Prince Claus Fund of the Netherlands awarded him the Principal Prince Claus Award. Most recently in 2019 he was appointed Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Knight of the order of Arts and Letters) by the President of the French Republic. Among his many accolades, he also has two honorary doctorates in Law and in Literature.

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