‘Poetry and AI’ is the next online seminar from The Poetic Mind, a British Psychoanalytic Association series bringing poetry and psychoanalysis into conversation.

Poet and psychoanalyst Maurice Whelan will explore how poetry can challenge and diffuse the dehumanising effects of Artificial Intelligence, considering questions of imagination, emotional experience, creativity and the freedom to think. The seminar will be chaired by Louise Hayman, psychoanalyst with the British Psychoanalytic Association and co-chair of The Poetic Mind.

Poetry and AI.
An exploration of how poetry can challenge and diffuse the dehumanising effects of Artificial Intelligence.

Maurice Whelan Poet and Psychoanalyst 
Chair Louise Hayman

Monday 2nd November 2026
8-9.30pm
Online only

Biographies

Maurice Whelan is an Irish-born poet, psychoanalyst and writer based in Sydney, Australia. He trained as a psychoanalyst with the British Psychoanalytical Society in London and later moved to Australia, where he became a Training Analyst of the Australian Psychoanalytical Society and served two terms as Chair of the Sydney Institute for Psychoanalysis.
Before training as an analyst, Whelan studied philosophy, theology, sociology, criminology and social policy, and worked as a social worker and psychiatric social worker.
His writing relate to the themes of the Poetic Mind Seminars and brings psychoanalysis into conversation with poetry, literature, creativity and the freedom to think.
He has published numerous books of poetry and prose, including The Lilac Bow, A Season and a Time, In the Company of William Hazlitt and Thought: The Invisible Essence. A recurring theme throughout his work is the relationship between imagination, emotional experience and the development of an independent mind.

Louise Hayman is a Psychoanalyst with the BPA and co-chair with David Morgan of Poetic Mind.