Unconscious Generational Transmission: A Psychoanalytic Perspective with Dr. Owen Hewitson
Online lecture April 2nd with the founder of Lacan Online
Save the date: on Thursday, April 2nd, RU Center for Psychoanalysis will host Dr. Owen Hewitson for an illuminating presentation “Unconscious Generational Transmission: A Psychoanalytic Perspective”.
This talk will offer a psychoanalytic view of unconscious generational transmission - how an experience in one generation is transmitted to a later generation, how it is manifested in that generation, and the effects that this transmission produces. Models of trauma have tended to dominate models of transmission, so that transmission is often relegated to being an epiphenomenon of trauma. This presentation will argue the opposite: that transmission should be considered the primary and central phenomenon. It will propose that the problem of generational transmission is the origin story of psychoanalysis. It is no accident that one of its founding myths - that of Oedipus - is itself a story about unconscious generational transmission. A Lacanian model of transmission without trauma will be proposed, with the signifier - the primary organising element of the unconscious - as the vehicle for this transmission. Through clinical examples we will look at how an individual's efforts to establish a 'Family Line', a construction which renders sensical the subject's place in a generational lineage, are determinative of generational transmission as an unconscious process. REGISTER HERE.
We will be meeting at 6PM London (10AM Vancouver / 1PM NYC / 19:00 Stockholm / 20:00 Beirut) on Thursday, April 2nd, for 90 minutes.
Everyone who is a paid subscriber to RU Center for Psychoanalysis is automatically registered for this event and will receive the zoom link to attend this event live. Plus the recording will be posted here at Substack under Classes.
If you are not a paid subscriber, you are also welcome to attend! Simply REGISTER HERE. Proceeds raised go towards paying our presenter(s). Thank you for your support!
The event will be recorded and available for everyone who registers.
Owen Hewitson is a psychoanalyst in private practice. He is a member of the College of Psychoanalysts, the Guild of Psychotherapists, and runs LacanOnline.com. His PhD in psychoanalysis was on the subject of unconscious generational transmission, a topic which remains one of his major research interests, alongside his clinical work.
Listen to Rendering Unconscious episode RU378: OWEN HEWITSON ON LACAN ONLINE, PSYCHOANALYSIS AS A CRAFT & READING LACAN LIKE POETRY
KV DUONG solo show WHERE WOUND BECOMES WATER, Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London, 30 JANUARY - 14 MARCH 2026.
Images: KV Duong Bomb Pond (Reunification), 2025; KV Duong, Family Portrait, 2025.
