Willa Schneberg and Matthew Smith in Conversation | 23rd March @7pm

Join us for a night of discussion with Willa Schneberg and Matthew Smith, Willa Schneberg is a poet, ceramic sculptor, interdisciplinary artist, essayist, curator and a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, (LCSW) in private practice in Portland, Oregon.

Her new poetry collection, entitled The Naked Room, illuminates issues pertaining to mental health. It is a true synthesis of her life as a psychotherapist, (of one not exempt from angst), and her life as a poet. These are poems of the unconscious, the dreamscape, the despondent, the unmoored and the mortal. This collection not only goes inside the inner workings of a clinician’s practice, but has a larger scope, which includes the history of psychiatric treatment with its dangerous “cures” and embedded prejudices, and treatment today and lack thereof for the houseless and insolvent for whom entering the realm of the “therapeutic hour” is a luxury beyond reach. 

Matthew Smith is Professor of Health History at the University of Strathclyde’s Centre for the Social History of Health and Healthcare.  In addition to writing The First Resort: The History of Social Psychiatry in the United States he has written books and co-edited volumes about ADHD, food allergy, dietary innovation, mental health and food additives.  He is a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker and co-edits the ‘Mental Health in Historical Perspective’ book series for Palgrave.

As always tickets are free but must be booked in advance, due to title availability it would be very helpful if you could also order your copies of Willa and Matthews books ahead of the event