Psychotherapy, stand-up comedy, and everyday life: Propositions via Félix Guattari's refrain

Description

I am working on a book, 'Therapy, stand-up, and the gesture of writing: Towards creative-relational inquiry', in which I look to Deleuze and Guattari, new materialist and affect theories, and the comic work of Stewart Lee and others, to explore the connections between stand-up comedy and psychotherapy. One line of inquiry in the project is psychoanalyst Guattari's notion of the refrain, which I find is serving as a way of conceptualising how, for example, surprise, subversion, juxtaposition, incongruity, and circularity all seem to come into play within both the therapeutic encounter and stand-up - and also in everyday life.

In this keynote address, I shall introduce the concept of the refrain, briefly locating it within Guattari's clinical and wider work (in particular with philosopher Gilles Deleuze). The heart of my talk will be examples of the refrain drawn from therapy, stand-up comedy and from the everyday.

Period	23 Feb 2018
Event title	44th National Conference of India Association of Clinical Psychologists
Event type	Conference
Location	Delhi, IndiaShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International