We would like to invite you to save the dates for our end-of-grant hybrid conference: The Time of Care: Conclusions from the Waiting Times Project. The event will take place on Tuesday 28th March – Wednesday 29th March 2023, together with a special show by renowned performance artist, Martin O’Brien, to open proceedings on the evening of Monday 27th March.
Waiting is one of healthcare’s core experiences. There from the time it takes to access services; through the days, weeks, months or years needed for diagnoses; in the time that treatment takes; and in the elongated time-frames of recovery, relapse, remission and dying. However, though often discussed and considered in terms of waiting lists and times, and especially in relation to health and social care crises, waiting is also vital to practices of care.
Waiting Times has explored what it means to wait in and for healthcare by examining lived experiences, representations, and histories of impeded and delayed time. The project has mobilised a range of artistic and engaged research methodologies, as well as ethnographic, philosophical and historical investigations to consider different forms of suspended, elongated, and “non-productive” temporalities in different sites and practices: in forms of watchful waiting and recurrent waiting with that take place in general practice, mental health services, and trans care; within modes of chronic care and forms of time that are held and unfolded within psychotherapy; and as part of cultural framings, experiences, and care provided at the end of life.
The conference offers a final chance for our researchers to showcase their work, to reflect collectively on its meanings and implications, and to bring the team into conversation with invited speakers and research partners across a number of panels and performances.
We would be very keen for you to join us for these interactions, either in-person (at the Friends’ House, Euston Road, London) or online.
Registration will open very soon, and we will share the Eventbrite link once our page is live. Attendance is free, and there will be no cap on online attendance. Our in-person capacity will be limited, however, and spaces will be made available in due course.
We (somewhat ironically) can’t wait to share this time with you and we very much look forward to seeing you in some capacity in March!
The Waiting Times Team.
The history of human obesity is complex. Modern Bariatric services offer medical and surgical interventions towards what proves a challenging task for both patient and clinician – that of encouraging sustained, substantial weight loss over a lifetime. Psychological approaches within bariatric services have a place not only in supporting treatment before and after surgery, but also in those who choose lifestyle modification over surgery. However, the focus of evidence-based approaches in healthcare settings is time-limited; and predictably on weight loss as the main desirable outcome rather than an exploration of the totality of the obese patients’ experience. Today’s Maudsley lecture is an attempt to address this gap by exploring the setting and frame of a Bariatric service from a psychoanalytical perspective. Dr Anuradha Menon who is a liaison psychiatrist and psychoanalyst working in a Bariatric service in Leeds will be in dialogue with Professor Lisa Baraitser, a psychoanalyst who has written widely on feminist theory, motherhood, ethics, care and temporality.
Martin O’Brien, photo by Alma Daskalaki
Jordan Osserman and FYTA, photo by Alma Daskalaki