Jackie Danicki

That’s the title of the next in Christian Michel’s 6/20 evening talks, coming up on Wednesday in Marylebone Lane. The last one, on the moral case for financial privacy, was great; I hope we can make it to this one (and get a seat - the venue fills to bursting every week, apparently) as it sounds fascinating:

In her talk as in her book, Dr Eva Cybulska-Corsack will focus on the relationship between early trauma and psychosis, this acute form of mental illness. Psychosis is a temporary interruption to life’s narrative, due to a collapse of Kantian categorical framework. A delusion formation ensues. It functions as the mind’s creative attempt to construct a life narrative and to restore equilibrium to a disintegrating psychic reality. Too many Greek-sounding words for you? Then along with Nietzsche call it a ‘life saving lie’! But what kind of life is saved by a lie? Two of Eva’s ‘psychiatrist’s tales’ will give us a poignant illustration. These will be read by young actress Maria Bonner, who is completing her studies at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. Ultimately, asks Eva, is there a more meaningful and less isolating way of making sense of a traumatic experience? That would be when the patient is no longer an alien, and the practitioner no longer an alienist.

Born and educated in Gdansk, Poland (the birth city of Schopenhauer and ‘Solidarity’), Dr Eva Cybulska-Corsack has made London her home since the mid-seventies. Having trained in the UK as a psychiatrist, she has worked as a consultant for almost two decades. After authoring numerous articles in professional journals, she’s decided to publish her first book aimed at a general audience.

Filed under: Life