A Queer Encounter at the Freud Museum (with Queer Encounters and the Mental Health and Social Justice Network). In-house workshop.

Psychoanalysis has a deeply problematic history of homophobic and transphobic theory and practice. But psychoanalytic theory can also be one of the most radical ways of thinking about gender and sexuality, and affirmative clinical practice can provide valuable space for patients/clients to dream of queer and trans futures. This event will address this paradox by staging a creative encounter with the archive of psychoanalytic writing about gender and sexuality in the resonant space of the Freud Museum London. We will ask the question: what do we want to do with the archive of psychoanalytic writing about queer and trans people?

Queer and trans people have always found ways to create their own spaces, although these archives were often not formally preserved. We will juxtapose the psychoanalytic archive with documents from the queer history of Broadmoor, the oldest high-security psychiatric hospital. We will also invite participants to bring their own writing,art, and experiences.

The event will start with a talk about the history of psychoanalysis and queer and trans people, an introduction to the Freud Museum archive, and the hidden queer history of the Freuds’ family home. We’ll then use archival texts – copies of psychoanalytic writing about gender and sexuality, archival texts from Broadmoor, and attendees own writing or art – to make zines. We can rip them up, take them apart, decide which sections to keep, which to throw away, and use this archival material to make something new. Participants will be invited to use their own experiences of talking about gender and sexuality as clients or patients in psychotherapy to create new entries into the psychoanalytic archive. The workshop will then close with a reflective space to think about the experience.

The workshop is primarily intended for queer and trans people who have experience as patients in psychotherapy and / or in the mental health system, but all are welcome, including clinicians, trainees, and academics who are interested in queer and trans psychoanalysis.

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Speakers and facilitators:

Harriet Mossop (she/her) is a PhD student and Assistant Lecturer in the Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies, at the University of Essex, and Research and Development Officer in the Centre for Anthropological Mental Health Research in Action at the School for Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Her research on queer erotic transference sits at the intersection of queer, trans, decolonial and psychoanalytic theory. She is a co-founder of the Queer Encounters research network for psychosocial researchers in gender and sexuality (www.queerencounters.org) and an Associate Scholar of the British Psychoanalytic Council. She uses creative, queer methods including zine making and collage in her research, and has run zine making workshops for clinical and academic groups.

Agnes Meadows (she/her) is an MSc student in child psychotherapy at the Anna Freud Centre and has an MA in Psychoanalysis from Birkbeck. Her archival research on the history of child psychoanaysis has appeared in History Workshop Journal (2022) and Psychoanalysis and History (forthcoming), and she has also published in New Associations and Critical Quarterly.

Anna-Peter Magyarlaki (they/them) is a trans and nonbinary trainee psychodynamic psychotherapist, studying at Goldsmiths. Prior to training as a therapist, they worked in the human rights field and conducted social psychology research into queer community dynamics and identity formation. Two papers from this research were published in the International Journal of Transgender Health and Clothing and Textiles Research Journal. They are particularly passionate about cultivating spaces for decolonial queer psychoanalytic praxis.

Dr Cate Bailey (they/them) completed training as a liaison, adult and older adult psychiatrist in 2021 and has worked in the NHS across East London for the last 10 years. They were previously an NIHR academic clinical fellow, an MHRUK scholar and completed an MD(Res) at King’s College London in 2025. Their mixed-methods research focussed on experiences and understanding in patients with functional neurological disorders, with particular attention to stigma and epistemic injustice. Cate is currently taking a break from full time clinical practice to learn and organise in spaces that are committed to disability justice and abolition. This has included work with MedAct (https://www.medact.org/) and the Criminalising Distress project which investigated the evolution, harms and legacy of the carceral practices underpinning the Serenity Integrated Mentoring (SIM) scheme. They are currently involved in campaigns with Health Workers for a Free Palestine, Defend Our Juries and No Palantir in the NHS.

Han Dee (they

Description supplied by the event organiser.