Confidentiality and Confession / Thursday 1 August 2013, 7-9pm

THE ETERPHILOUS SOCIETY
Confidentiality and Confession
Thursday 1 August 2013, 7-9pm

A roundtable discussion to investigate the nature of environments that allow for the exchange of intimate knowledge. Looking at the relationship between counsellors and clients, priests and members of their congregations, this session looks at intimate forms of circulation; the forms of knowledge exchanged and the conditions that make this possible. The session will be hosted by T.E.S. with guest speaker Peter Bell, Sex Therapist for Relate. The session will be held in confidence.

Peter Bell works as a sex therapist for Relate Medway and North Kent. Until June 2012 he worked as Head of Clinical Practice for Relate Ltd. He has been a Relationship Counsellor since 1991 and as a Psychosexual Therapist since 1998. Peter has been a supervisor and a training coordinator all with Relate.

Peter is particularly interested in matters of confidentiality and in the ethics of counselling and psychotherapy and in the relationship between mental health and psychosexual difficulties. He joined the College of Sexual and Relationship Therapists (COSRT) Board in 2009 and served as Chair of the Board of Trustees from 2009 to 2012. He is currently a member of the Ethics Committee of COSRT.
Book a free place on eventbrite http://www.eventbrite.com/org/4155100519

THE ETERPHILOUS SOCIETY explores visible and invisible sources of knowledge on intimacy, opening up platforms for public discussion and shared learning on intimacy today. The project is structured as a long-term research, developed within collaborative processes of co-research and focusing on the development of workshops, events and discussion as to create situations that feeds into a singular framework.

The project started from the discovery of the Witt’s collection of sketchbooks and manuscripts held in the British Museum and the collection from Pompeii and Herculaneum held in the Archaeological Museum of Naples. The discussion around the origins of those collections, their means and the ways have been founded, developed, destroyed, distributed, displayed and suppressed gives a perspective to look back in history and think about how sexual culture has been circulated in society and how it circulates now.

The research unfolds within the framework of a fictional society, The Eterphilous Society (TES), a society for the public exchange of private knowledge of the intimate. TES defines the discipline of eterphilogy and embodies the study of intimacy, looking specifically at the locality of the intimate and its sources of knowledge.  TES operates through intimate gatherings including talks, discussions, workshops and reading groups.