“Why do I have to do this?” Institutions, Integrity and Citizenship

Held on Zoom 13 March 2021, 18:30 – 20:30 GMT (13:30 – 15:30 EST)

A functioning democratic society needs effective and committed citizens. Without their active engagement, chaos and irrationality reign and authoritarianism flourishes. But for any of us, discovering and claiming a citizen voice on behalf of others is a challenge – and a risk. “Why do I have to do this?” is a question any citizen might ask when facing an impulse to act in response to society’s needs.

Answering that question requires attention to issues of identity: “Who am I, what do I stand for, and why now do I feel moved to act”? Who we are is shaped by our contexts: our families, the institutions we join, and the missions they carry out on behalf of society. When we take up the role of citizen, we inevitably represent those contexts and the values that have shaped us.

But our contexts are in transition; their links to society’s needs have become unclear. In this lecture, Dr Shapiro will review our current social turmoil and the challenges we face, outlining a developmental pathway to the role of citizen and focusing on the impact of social systems – families and institutions – on identity.

Ed Shapiro is the former Medical Director/CEO of the Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge, MA. A psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, family researcher, and organizational consultant, he is also Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine. Dr Shapiro has been an organisational consultant for over forty years and has coached executives from an array of industries.

Ed is the author of Finding a Place to Stand: Developing Self-Reflective Institutions, Leaders and Citizens (Phoenix, 2020) and co-author (with A. Wesley Carr) of Lost in Familiar Places: Creating New Connections between the Individual and Society (Yale, 1991). He is the editor of The Inner World in the Outer World (Yale, 1997) and has published over fifty articles and book chapters on human development, organisational and family functioning, and personality disorders, presenting papers in the United States and abroad. A Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, he is also a Fellow of the AK Rice Institute (AKRI) and the American College of Psychoanalysis. He is on the Boards of AKRI and the International Dialogue Initiative (IDI), and on the Advisory Board of Partners Confronting Collective Atrocities (PCCA). He is a Principal in the Boswell Group of New York.

This online event is organised by OPUS. Tickets can be booked here. 

The price is £35. For any enquiries, please email financedirector@opus.org.uk.
Zoom links will be sent to people after registration. 

The Eric Miller Memorial Lecture was set up in 2003 to honour the contribution that Eric Miller made to the establishment and development of OPUS.

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