Why we lie - Event Cancelled

Dorothy Rowe is a psychologist and writer. Born in Australia in 1930, she has been based in England since 1968, although more recently she has been spending the English winter in Sydney. All her work is concerned with examining the question, 'Why do we behave as we do?' Her most recent book is Why We Lie (HarperCollins).

Why do we lie? Because we are frightened of being humiliated, being treated like an object, being rejected, losing control of things, and, most of all, we are frightened of uncertainty. Often we get our lies in before any of these things can happen. We lie to maintain our vanity. We lie when we call our fantasies the truth. Lying is much easier than searching for the truth and accepting it, no matter how inconvenient it is. We lie to others, and, even worse, we lie to ourselves.

In both private and public life, we damage ourselves with our lies, and we damage other people. Lies destroy mutual trust, and fragment our sense of who we are. Lies have played a major part in climate change and the global economic crisis. Fearing to change how they live, many people prefer to continue lying rather than acknowledge that we are facing a very uncertain but undoubtedly unpleasant future unless we learn how to prefer the truths of the real world in which we live rather than the comforting lies that ultimately betray us. We are capable of changing, but will we choose to do this?

9.30am	Registration and coffee
10.00am	Introduction & Welcome (Therapy Challenges)
10.05am	First session Why we lie in the context of therapy since 1968
11.30am	Tea/coffee
11.45am	Second session. Should psychiatrists apologise for the lies they have told about mental disorders?
1.00pm	Lunch
2.00pm	Third session Should therapists apologise for the lies they tell/told their clients?
3.15pm	Tea/coffee
3.30pm	Fourth session Plenary / discussion
4.30pm	End