SICK NORMALITIES: CHANGING PRACTICES, CHANGING SELVES

3rd CICSI Summer School 18-19 September 2025

LAKEVIEW AUDITORIUM, University of Essex, Colchester Campus

“‘A feast of wonderful conversations and stimulating presentations.”

"Very well curated, organised, multi-disciplinary, a lot of care went into the whole thing, and everyone was lovely, it was one of the warmest conferences I've been to!"

“The format was perfect… it was all stimulating and energised all the way through"

How can we shift focus onto social policies and politics, addressing distress by changing our practices and ourselves?

The Centre for Investigating Contemporary Social Ills (CICSI)

together with the School of Philosophical, Historical and Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Essex (PHAIS) present

the 3rd CICSI Summer School

taught by leading experts and practitioners from three countries, including Dainius Pūras, former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, whose influential 2017 report called for ending coercion in mental health settings and wider social change to alleviate and prevent distress.

The Summer School is taught in person and runs over 2 days and consists of a mixture of presentations, interactive exercises, and case study discussions.

The programme builds on the earlier two CICSI Summer Schools held in 2023 and 2024, on De-Medicalising Distress, and on Addressing the Social Context of Distress, but no previous knowledge or attendance is necessary.

Day 1 is focused on ending coercion in mental health settings and preventing distress through social change.
Day 2 extends the idea that politics is and must be brought into the clinic in various ways, adjusting therapeutic interventions to respond to social patterns of distress, and acute crises such as war and environmental breakdown, as well as reflecting on our values and ways of living.

Suitable for psychiatrists, counsellors and therapists, GPs and any other mental health professionals; policy-makers; social workers; experts-by-experience/service users/survivors; and researchers and students from various social and health related fields.

The participants will gain a critical understanding of everything that is coercive in mental health settings – and learn about good practices of ending or minimising this coercion. We will also explore how policies and politics affect our mental health from the policy level to the therapy sessions to our own values and psychic attachments.

Feel free to bring your own examples and questions from your work or research!

Registration open

“CICSI is an antidote to any malaise researchers, clinicians and academics involved in mental heath work might sleep walk into. It offers a philosophical & practical challenge to the seemingly grinding machine of orthodoxy in the treatment and understanding of 'mental health"

“ So many highlights! Hearing from a wide range of excellent speakers, being in the company of such engaged, positive, people, from a range of disciplines who I don't often have the opportunity to meet. I felt that the progression of the themes over the three days also worked incredibly well - gradually moving the focus from the theoretical/historical to the practical/applied. I really enjoyed this feeling of the conversation evolving over the days. The format of the event was also excellent and really different from a standard conference...worked so well to create a sense of community."

“It's a forum for ideas but also to listen to successes from practice, including international examples both structural, individual and theoretical. I leave the conference not just intellectually invigorated but with sound practical knowledge that I will incorporate into my working life. A fantastically well organised inspirational conference in beautiful grounds with great catering.”

Speakers

Vilnius University, Lithuania

Prof Dainius Pūras

Professor of Child Psychiatry and Public Mental Health at Vilnius University. In 2007-2011, a member of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. Former UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health from 2014 to 2020, producing a landmark report on mental health provision, calling for an end to coercion and for addressing the wider social context. Former director of the Human Rights Monitoring Institute, Lithuania. Actively involved during the last 30 years in the process of transforming public health policies and services.

University of Essex

Prof Fabian Freyenhagen

Professor of Philosophy and member of the Essex Human Rights Centre. Working in areas of Social and Political Philosophy and Philosophy of Psychiatry, with a focus on mental distress and its social conditions, and on autonomy in the contexts of care. Author of Adorno's Practical Philosophy: Living Less Wrongly, and papers on Critical Theory and Social Pathology. CICSI's founding director. Currently working on a Foucault-inspired critique of our psychiatric present.

University of East London

Prof Mary Boyle

Emeritus Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of East London where she led the Doctoral Programme in Clinical Psychology.

Held NHS posts in adult mental health and women’s health. Author of “Schizophrenia:

A scientific delusion?” and many papers on feminist approaches to women’s health and on problems of and alternatives to psychiatric

diagnosis. Lead author, with Lucy Johnstone, of the Power Threat Meaning Framework.

Better Mental Health

Ed Davie

Lead author of A Mentally Healthier Nation: Towards a ten-year, cross-government plan for better prevention, equality and support; designed and delivered the Thrive LDN Mentally Healthier Councils training programme to 532 elected members in 32 boroughs; over a decade as a Local Government Association Expert Peer advising councils all over England, and serving as a senior Lambeth Councillor including as Cabinet Member and LGIU-award-winning scrutiny chair. Director of Better Mental Health; Public Health Manager (Tower Hamlets); and Visiting Lecturer at King’s College London

Relational Psychoanalytic Therapy, London

Dr Anastasios Gaitanidis

Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist with many years of experience, including as supervisor, deeply rooted in contemporary relational psychoanalytic theory and practice; Researcher and Academic (including at Regent's University); Theory Editor at the European Journal of Psychotherapy and Counselling. Author and editor of several books, including The Sublime in Everyday Life and The Male in Analysis. Recent work on (our rage about) environmental destruction and how we can develop communal forms to respond.

International Peer Support

Lisa Archibald

20 years of experience in setting up, coordinating and training peer communities and networks. After a rocky childhood, eventually found peer support in the 1990’s. Started to facilitate youth peer support groups initially in Scotland and then advocacy services and adult peer support groups internationally. A passionate activist for social change. Dedicated to supporting grassroots peer communities in growing and thriving without being co-opted along the way. Co-Director of International Peer Support.

University of Essex & CICSI

Felix Yeung

Interdisciplinary research on how our social context shapes our subjectivities, our values, and our experiences of distress; and how this relates to a manic culture dominated by social media and to paranoid politics. Drawing also on his personal experience of living in Hong Kong, this social diagnosis is supplemented by investigating how collective mourning and holding practices might help us to overcome the wounding attachment we have to our neoliberal social context. Publications include an important article on psychoanalysing democracies as well as work on the ethics of AI.

Psychoanalyst, author, formerly of EHESS

Professor Françoise Davoine

Professor Emeritus at the Centre for the Study of Social Movements, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris, where she and Jean-Max Gaudillière conducted a weekly seminar on Madness and the Social Link for 40 years. Author of many articles and books, including Wittgenstein’s Folly, History Beyond Trauma, Madness and the Social Link, and The Birth of a Political Self. Currently working with Ukranian psychoanalysts.

Schedule

Provisional Schedule

DAY 1

~ ARRIVAL AND COFFEE FROM 8:45 ~

10:00-10:15

WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION

10:15-11:30

ON ENDING COERCION

Prof Danius Pūras

~ BREAK WITH REFRESHMENTS 11:30-11:45 ~

11:45-13:00

ADDRESSING SEVERE DISTRESS WITHOUT COERCION

Group work led by Lisa Archibald

~ LUNCH 13:00 - 14:15 ~

14:15-15:30

OUR PSYCHIATRIC PRESENT

Prof Fabian Freyenhagen

~ BREAK WITH REFRESHMENTS 15:30-16:00 ~

16:00-17:30

PUBLIC HEALTH POLICIES AS PREVENTION

Ed Davie

~ DINNER 18:30 - 20:00 ~

Schedule

DAY 2

~ COFFEE FROM 8:45 ~

09:00-10:15

BRINGING POLITICS TO THE CONSULTING ROOM AND BEYOND

Prof Mary Boyle

BREAK WITH REFRESHMENTS 10:15 - 10:45

10:45-12:00

ACUTE PSYCHOANALYSIS IN ACUTE SITUATIONS

Prof Françoise Davoine

~ LUNCH 12:00 - 13:15 ~

13:15-14:30

MENTAL DISTRESS: VALUES AND WAYS OF LIVING

Felix Yeung

BREAK WITH REFRESHMENTS 14:30 - 14:45

14:45-16:00

ANXIETY ABOUT THE WORLD: RUNNING "GRIEF CIRCLES"

Dr Anastasios Gaitanidis

BREAK WITH REFRESHMENTS 16:00 - 16:15

16:15-17:00

CHANGING PRACTICES, CHANGING SELVES

Closing plenum

Location and Fees

The 3rd CICSI Summer School will take place in the beautiful Lakeview Auditorium at University of Essex, Colchester Campus.

Location

Lakeview Auditorium, Silberrad Student Centre, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester, Essex, CO4 3FA

ACCOMMODATION

Accommodation needs to be booked extra. Directly on campus, there are two options.

a) WIVENHOE HOUSE HOTEL: 4-star hotel and just a short walk away from our venue. You can book rooms either directly by contacting reservations@wivenhoehouse.co.uk or by finding the best available rates on different platforms.

b) ESSEX UNIVERSITY ACCOMMODATION: ensuite single rooms with a shared kitchen: £45 per night without breakfas. To book please visit this page and enter one of the following promo codes:
CICSIRO (for room only=£45 per night)

CICSIBB (for bed and breakfast=£51 per night)
If you wish to book over the phone, you can call 01206 872358. The office opening times are Monday-Thursday (9am-5:15pm) and Friday (9am-4:30pm).

Please note that this booking is non-refundable.

Fees

EARLY BIRD FEE (until 5th July) £295

STANDARD FEE (from 6th July) £355

The fee includes:

two days of presentations, exercises, and case study discussions with world-leading experts
course material
daily lunches and refreshments
1 evening meal
a certificate of completion for your CPD

To take advantage of our Early Bird Discount, please complete your application and submit payment by 5th July.

Participants will also be entitled to a discounted event on Coercion in November 2025 in London - details to follow,

Registration open

Info