PHILOSOPHY
The PA offers therapy to individuals, couples and groups. Therapy opens up a space for thinking that is helpful when things go wrong in our lives. The therapeutic relationship unfolds new, creative and liberating perspectives on difficulties outside.
Ther are two PA therapeutic houses in North London. People who are suffering and need space away from the pressures and demands of modern day life can live with others in these houses for extended periods, using the time spent with each other to reflect on their experiences. More fulfilling lives become possible as a consequence.
The Philadelphia Association (PA) Study Programme includes the Introductory Course in Philosophy and Psychotherapy, an online Introductory Course in Community, Philosophy and Psychotherapy, Diploma Course in Community and Psychotherapy and a Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy training.
The PA is a member of the Council for Psychoanalysis and Jungian Analysis College (CPJA) of the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP)
We organise events including discussions, film screenings and publish a newsletter.
ACTIVITIES
The PA favours a creative approach to therapy that involves being ready to question the social norms that often contribute to someone's unhappiness.
An engagement with philosophy and other fields, including anthropology, spirituality and the practice of art, is a fundamental part of our approach. So is a belief in the value of ordinary ways of living and being together. Community and inclusive conversation have the power to alleviate what disturbs people.
Once conversation begins, paths open up that lead away from isolation and despair towards dignity and greater freedom.
THE PHILADELPHIA ASSOCIATION was founded in 1965 by R. D. Laing and colleagues in order to challenge established ways of thinking about and responding to distress. For more than fifty years we have offered an open-minded alternative approach to psychotherapy that is unique in Britain.
PA NOTICE BOARD
PHILADELPHIA ASSOCIATION HOUSEHOLDS
The Philadelphia Association provides supported housing for those who are looking for a different way of understanding and making sense of their burdens and experiences. It is our understanding that through ordinary everyday living experiences can be explored in a way that leads to increased insight, freedom and independence. The Association provides regular therapeutic house meetings, accessing1:1 Psychotherapy alongside practical housing related support.
There is currently a resident vacancy in the PA Freegrove Community House. To find out more, or to speak with a house therapist, please complete the online application form or contact the PA office.
PA Study Programme
We are currently interviewing for places on the PA Study Programme beginning in 2026/27.
Courses available:
To apply, please complete the application form and indicate which course you are interested in. A course coordinator will contact you with further information
The Laboratory for a Feminist Listening
Now you need to listen!
This is a feminist space that has been born out of a frustration for what does not get to be heard and listened to properly in the clinic. Feminist ears wish to challenge psychoanalysis’ formulaic listening that wishes to confirm theoretical constructions that still serve phallocentric discourses. Psychoanalytic listening often turns a deaf ear to what falls outside its axioms, to what exposes violence and domination, to what disturbs current systems of power.
We start from Spivak’s position that "who will listen" is more crucial than "who shall speak," and advocate for an ethical, imaginative engagement of feminist ears that listen through a critical and intersectional feminist lens.
We wish to put forward an image of a deeply involved, personally motivated analyst, whose work is intense and emotionally risky, driven by a radical ethics of love and care that breaks away from the interpersonal and the familial. A listening that de-oedipalises and decolonises psychoanalytic thinking and praxis and transforms the clinic to a space of freedom for rethinking the relations between individual and collective responsibility.
We meet monthly to share texts, thoughts and experiences within and outside the clinic; to offer support to each other and create a community. This is an open space for people who think psychoanalysis is not just a neutral tool or or neutral intervention and who do not wish to “cure” symptoms but start from the understanding that individual change and collective/social change are intertwined. We want psychoanalysis not to be insular and envision a creative clinic that restores the belief in the world.
If you are interested in attending any of our meetings please scan this code. (WhatsApp code)
These are drop-in meetings and you are free to join at any point.’
There has been a QR code created for people
to sign up for the group.
PA ARTS COLLECTIVE
You are invited to attend the next PA Arts Collective Happening at 7.30pm on Saturday 14th March at Marty's Yard. Join us for a free community arts event of poetry, art, drama, movement and dancing. Bring a friend/s or come alone and participate in your own way.
The theme for this event is Conflict and Adversity - which we invite you to respond to in whatever way that moves you.
Please RSVP to the PA office if you would like to attend and please share in your email if there is something you would like to offer in the evening: a poem, a short participatory workshop, a song, artwork.....etc. All contributions and everyone welcome
Also please bring drinks and nibbles to share too
Hope to see you on the 14th March
The PA Arts Collective
