How is class present and elided in the history of psychoanalytic theory and practice? What does a class-conscious psychoanalysis mean today? Social class, a topic long neglected or repressed in psychology and psychoanalysis alike, is now on the agenda in both fields.

The British Psychological Society has recently recognised that “social class-based discrimination has negative impacts on people’s life-chances, widens health inequalities and limits opportunities,” and their #Makeit10 campaign aims to have social class included on the list of characteristics protected against discrimination under the UK Equalities Act. A whole subfield of social psychology, including in its critical form, is now concerned with questions of social class, and since the turn of the millennium, psychoanalysis has increasingly also been revisiting its historical engagement in equitable treatments, with contemporary academic and clinical projects taking this work forward.

In this seminar, organised by the Red Clinic, a UK-based project to provide free and low-cost psychoanalytic therapy to those without the means to access it otherwise, we think through the question of psychoanalysis and social class. With social class inequalities at the forefront of the many challenges societies face today, this seminar aims to offer a space for reflection on psychoanalysis and social class that will be of interest to psychoanalytic theorists and practitioners, students, and anyone interested in these issues. Recorded 5th May 2023.