The Helix Center

This roundtable will examine meditation as a deliberately cultivated mental state that, despite being difficult to define, has well-documented benefits for mental and physical health, focusing on the interplay between conscious intention and unconscious processes that sustain it.

These roundtables will explore how advances in computational neuroscience, molecular biology, and genomics are transforming understandings of disease, shifting perceptions of illness toward more mechanistic, data-driven, and personalized frameworks, and enabling earlier detection, refined diagnosis, and targeted therapies.

This colloquium, organized by the Helix Center and ADAPes Freud Committee, brings together psychoanalysts, scholars, and cultural and political figures to engage in roundtable discussions on identity formation, education and the pursuit of knowledge, and the role of knowledge in addressing religious and nationalist extremism. Drawing on Freudian thought, the event examines how modern crises of identity, secularization, and globalizing consumerism intersect with tensions between individual desire, collective belonging, and social cohesion. It further considers the limits of education, the dynamics of mass psychology, and the distinction between open civic structures and closed systems such as nation and religion. Across these themes, the colloquium seeks to reflect on how psychoanalytic perspectives might help interpret contemporary social malaise and contribute to a renewed commitment to reason, humanism, and cosmopolitan values.

Part 3: Identity A Colloquium of The Helix Center for Interdisciplinary Investigation and L’ Association Des Amis de Passages (ADAPes) Comité Freud December 5th and 6th, 2015 at the Helix Center Participants: Marilia Aisenstein Psychoanalyst; Former President, Société Psychanalyste de Paris (Paris Psychoanalytic Society) Ian Buckingham Psychoanalyst; President, New York Psychoanalytic Society & Institute Vincent... read more! »

Part 4: Culture A Colloquium of The Helix Center for Interdisciplinary Investigation and L’ Association Des Amis de Passages (ADAPes) Comité Freud December 5th and 6th, 2015 at the Helix Center Participants: Marilia Aisenstein Psychoanalyst; Former President, Société Psychanalyste de Paris (Paris Psychoanalytic Society) Ian Buckingham Psychoanalyst; President, New York Psychoanalytic Society & Institute Vincent Crapanzano... read more! »

Part 5: Conclusion A Colloquium of The Helix Center for Interdisciplinary Investigation and L’ Association Des Amis de Passages (ADAPes) Comité Freud December 5th and 6th, 2015 at the Helix Center Participants: Marilia Aisenstein Psychoanalyst; Former President, Société Psychanalyste de Paris (Paris Psychoanalytic Society) Ian Buckingham Psychoanalyst; President, New York Psychoanalytic Society & Institute Vincent Crapanzano... read more! »

Part 2: Education and Civilizational Crisis A Colloquium of The Helix Center for Interdisciplinary Investigation and L’ Association Des Amis de Passages (ADAPes) Comité Freud December 5th and 6th, 2015 at the Helix Center Participants: Marilia Aisenstein Psychoanalyst; Former President, Société Psychanalyste de Paris (Paris Psychoanalytic Society) Ian Buckingham Psychoanalyst; President, New York Psychoanalytic Society... read more! »

This roundtable will explore translation as a fundamental cultural, psychic, and aesthetic process that extends beyond its traditional role as a technical linguistic practice, shaping how meaning is displaced, exchanged, and renewed across contexts.

This roundtable will examine how advances in memory research can deepen our understanding of the role memory plays in normal development and in shaping lived experience, while also informing efforts to address memory impairment in an aging population. It will further consider how dialogue between scientific researchers and practitioners of memory can foster mutual insights into the mechanisms, limits, and cultivation of memory across contexts.

This roundtable will examine the philosophical problem of knowledge and ignorance, considering how we come to recognize the limits of what we know and how “known unknowns” and “unknown unknowns” can be progressively identified through inquiry, reflection, and dialogue.