Evening Seminar - Thursday, 15th January 2026 @ 7.00pm

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Dr Roberta Babb

When the Outside World Enters the Room: The Chilling Effect in Forensic Psychotherapy

This seminar examines how external events and global crises shape the internal world of patients, staff, and institutions within forensic contexts. It focuses on the “chilling effect” – the silencing of speech under conditions of surveillance, fear, and institutional pressure – and its impact on therapeutic practice.

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Drawing on psychoanalytic and psychodynamic perspectives, the seminar will explore how political crises, social and intersectional inequalities, and cultural anxieties enter forensic services and influence what can and cannot be spoken. The uneven distribution of silence across hierarchies and identities, and to the ways defensive practice and compliance cultures constrain therapeutic openness will also be explored.

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Attendees will be invited to reflect on how silences emerge in their own work, the meanings they may carry, and how small acts of resistance can sustain the possibility of speech, reflection, and repair.