A full-day event exploring the continuing relevance of Object Relations theory across contemporary culture, politics, and clinical practice.

OBJECT RELATIONS IN THE MODERN ERA (IN PERSON ATTENDANCE)

A full-day event exploring the continuing relevance of Object Relations theory across contemporary culture, politics, and clinical practice.

Featuring:

- Presentations

- Panel Discussions

- Q&A

Topics include:

• Arts & Culture

• Global Politics

• Clinical Application

October 31st, 2026

9:00 AM – 5:15 PM

CPD points available.

Arts and Culture Panel

This panel explores how psychoanalysis might help us to reflect on our experiences with the arts and culture, focusing particularly on literature, film and mural art.

Dr Mary Pyle (Irish Forum for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy) ‘Object Relations and Fictional Characters’

Dr Noreen Giffney (Irish Forum for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy and Ulster University, Belfast) ‘At the Breast of Culture’

Dr Niamh Callaghan (EastSide Partnership, Belfast and Queen’s University Belfast) ‘Murals as Psychic Objects’

Speaker: Dr Mary Pyle, Irish Forum for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy

Title: Object Relations and Fictional Characters

Description: Rules about how critics may work with fictional characters have changed through the decades from Professor A.C. Bradley, a contemporary of Freud, who embraced psychoanalysis in his examination of Shakespearian characters, to contemporary criticism which posits that characters should not be thought of as real people. This poses a problem as unless readers can relate to fictional characters as real there can be no identification with them. Psychoanalyst Igněs Sodré explores how great writers create ‘true false characters’. In this presentation I look at the difficulty of combining the rules of current literary criticism with Object Relations theory when exploring readers reactions to and identifications with characters who they know to be fictional but to them are real while they are in the liminal space in which author, reader and fictional characters exist.

Bio: Dr Mary Pyle is a founder member of both the Irish Forum for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (IFPP) and the Irish Institute of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (IIPP). She has been a teacher, therapist and supervisor for the IIPP. She gained her PhD, which explored the appeal of the Harry Potter series to adult and child readers through the lenses of both object relations and contemporary literary criticism, from Trinity College Dublin, in 2022. She is the author of ‘Harry Potter, Psychoanalysis, and the Unconscious Dimension’ (Routledge 2026). https://www.routledge.com/Harry-Potter-Psychoanalysis-and-the-Unconscious-Dimension/Pyle/p/book/9781041010203

Speaker: Dr Noreen Giffney, Irish Forum for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy and Ulster University, Belfast

Title: At the Breast of Culture

Description: I will talk about the making of ‘Cultural Encounters’ (2026; dirs. Noreen Giffney and Allen Fatimaharan; 5 mins, 15 secs), an animated short film about the emotional and psychological nourishment and protection provided by our experiences with the arts and culture. While we might be aware of the short-term impact of a cultural object – how it makes us think or feel in the moment – we are usually unaware of how the ephemeral aspect of this experience stays with us and becomes part of us; the unconscious aspect of the experience in other words. ‘Cultural Encounters’ invites us to reflect on what our encounters with, attachments to and psychological uses of cultural objects might tell us about ourselves. It is underpinned by Kleinian psychoanalytic ideas, particularly the culture-breast, a new psychoanalytic concept I formulated and developed in my book, ‘The Culture-Breast in Psychoanalysis: Cultural Experiences and the Clinic’.

Bio: Dr Noreen Giffney is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist based in County Donegal in Ireland, and is a lecturer and researcher at Ulster University, Belfast. She is the author of the book, ‘The Culture-Breast in Psychoanalysis: Cultural Experiences and the Clinic’ (Routledge 2021), and the author and/or editor of additional articles and books on psychoanalysis, psychosocial studies, and the arts, culture and mental health. Noreen is the joint editor-in-chief, with Emmanuelle Smith, of ‘New Associations’ psychoanalytic magazine, published three times a year by the British Psychoanalytic Council. She was a member of the creative team, led by Professor Jill Bennett, for ‘World Comes Alive’ (fEEL 2025), the first virtual reality experience underpinned by psychoanalytic thinking. Noreen is an associate member of the performance arts organisation, Bbeyond, and takes opera singing lessons in her spare time. https://www.ulster.ac.uk/staff/n-giffney

Speaker: Dr Niamh Callaghan, EastSide Partnership, Belfast and Queen’s University Belfast

Title: Murals as Psychic Objects

Description: This presentation draws on my doctoral research into the emotional and unconscious impact of m

Description supplied by the event organiser.