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    Welcome

    We would like to welcome you all to the APS 2021 conference, being held online and hosted by the University of Essex. As many of are aware, our conference in 2020 was cancelled due to the pandemic of uncertainly that COVID has brought us all. Last year we could not have conceived of doing a conference of this nature on-line, including papers from Canada, India, USA, Europe and Africa. As such we have kept a conservative amount of time for each day, and hope that it is convenient for all who are presenting and attending the 4 days. We are very grateful that many of the original presenting authors have carried forward and/or transformed their papers to be relevant for the current psychosocial concerns in 2021. Thank you too to Ezimma Chigbo, Derek Hook and Elelwani Ramugondo for sticking with us from last year and offering us their thoughts on psychosocial bodies in July 2021.

    The conference committee has been supported by the excellent work of Dr. Sarah Shorrock. We are sure you have had many useful emails from, and her organising us all has been invaluable. We would like to acknowledge the APS Events group who, following the shutting down of the APS 2020 conference (in April 2020), have held APS on-line monthly meet ups, including a mini conference, keeping alive the thinking and work within the APS community. 

    During this time of lock downs, news of the rapid and devastating outbreaks of COVID in Brazil and India, frustrations with policy decisions (and no decisions) and the need to share resources across the world, i.e. we are not safe until all are safe, we have found moments of strange comfort. One came from a monthly message that Dr Chris Nicolson, head of department of psychoanalytic and psychosocial studies at Essex,  sent in April 2020 to all PPS students and staff. He has said we are welcome to use it now. Chris wrote;

    If an ‘unexamined life is not worth living’ then neither is an [un]examined crisis.  The waves of tragedy of this time cannot be diminished, but the chances to live better in the future can be extended.  In John Wyndham’s 1951 The Day of the Triffids, his languid British protagonist Bill Masen, reflecting on life before the collapse says: ‘Looking back at the shape of things then, the amount we did not know and did not care to know about our daily lives is not only astonishing, but somehow a bit shocking’.

    We hope this conference at this time, will allow us opportunities to think together about what we did not know as well as ways of moving forward into a future that is more aware of our fundamental human need for each other.

    Lindsey Nicholls, Poul Rohleder, Julie Walsh, Anthony Faramelli, Debbie Wright and Sarah Shorrock. APS 2021 Conference Committee.

    How to register

    More information, along with registration details, can be found in the events section of our website.

    Zoom Links and abstracts

    Please use the icons below (see Schedule) to gain access to the full conference booklet with all the abstracts and zoom links. The zoom links are embedded in the conference booklet (see index pages) and they are also in a 5 page downloadable 'Agenda and Zoom Link Booklet'. NB when you download the abstract and zoom link booklet your virus checker may break the link and the'vlick' feature does not work. If this happens, please cut and paste the zoom link directly into your browser. If you are having difficulty gaining access to the conference please email lratnage@essex.ac.uk or eventessex@essex.ac.uk