About Café Psychologique

Café Psychologique is a space to talk about life over a drink from a psychological perspective. It builds on the philosophy of Café Scientifique to take ideas out of universities, laboratories and clinics to make them accessible to people in everyday life. Like Café Scientifique there are trained professionals to provide a resource to the café, but no lectures or seminars. Instead, ideas are dropped into the group to stimulate thought and discussion.

Café Psychologique was created by Chris Powell and after two pilots at Greenbelt Arts festival the first ongoing UK Café Psychologique was set up in January 2011 at Seven Arts in Chapel Allerton, Leeds. We meet monthly on the last Tuesday of the month, from 8 to 10 pm. A Café Psychologique was launched in January 2013 by Group Analysis North in Manchester and another in Wolverhampton in January 2014. Cafés have run in Bournemouth and in Brighton. There is also now a Café Psychologique in Liverpool, set up in 2017. More recently Café Psychologique has gone international with cafés in Sydney and Prague.

You can read how the Cafe works here and download a guide for participants here.

A list of previous subjects covered in the Café is here.

Themes in the coming months:

2020

Tuesday 28 January
Failure: one thing I know I’m good at Dr Carol Martin, Clinical Psychologist

Tuesday 25 February
Extinction Rebellion: thinking the unthinkable Bill Phelps, Co-operative Crusty

Tuesday 31 March
The Cost of Caring Dr Philippa Sammons, Clinical Psychologist POSTPONED

Tuesday 28 April
Psychedelic-assisted therapy: cure-all or con? Dr Kamila Hortynska, Clinical Psychologist POSTPONED

Tuesday 26 May
To be confirmed

Tuesday 30 June
To be confirmed

Tuesday 21 July
To be confirmed

Tuesday 29 September
To be confirmed

Tuesday 20 October
To be confirmed

Tuesday 24 November
To be confirmed

Chris is looking for other venues in the UK to set up more Café Psychologique events.