Staff Research Interests
- Historical, philosophical, religious and cultural contexts of analytical psychology;
- Depth psychology, religion and modernity;
- Synchronicity;
- Myth.
- Psychoanalytic understanding of inquiry, including historical and scientific inquiry;
- Masculinity, including the masculinity of scientific naturalism and ideas of nature;
- Philosophy and Psychoanalytic theory;
- Certainty, prejudice, absolutism.
- Application of psychoanalysis to social sciences;
- Psychoanalytic Ethics;
- Epistemology and Methodology of Psychoanalytic Studies;
- Therapeutic communities;
- Group dynamics;
- History of psychoanalysis.
- Trauma, forced migration and refugees;
- Working with survivors of violence and disasters;
- The interface between Analytical Psychology and systems, family therapy, and culture;
- Analytical Psychology and epistemology.
- The interface between Analytical Psychology and Eastern Orthodox Christianity.
- Application of psychoanalytic thinking to politics;
- Comparative theoretical research in depth psychology;
- Political, social and cultural aspects of transference and counter-transference;
- The father;
- The construction of masculinity;
- The history of Jungian psychology.
- Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy
- Psychodynamic Counselling with Children and Adolescents
- Applications of Psychodynamic Thinking in non -clinical work
- Organisational Dynamics
- Eating Disorders
- Training issues with Counsellors and Psychotherapists
- The psychodynamics of online social networking
- Relational psychoanalysis and psychotherapy
- Gender and sexual identities
- Developments in contemporary psychotherapy (clinically, socially, and politically)
- Psychology and the media
- Psychosocial Studies
- The history of psychoanalysis and analytical psychology
- Psychosocial Studies and integrations of psychology with sociology
- Nineteenth-century theories of the unconscious
- German Romantic psychology and philosophy
- Psychoanalysis and critical theory
- Modernist poetry and poetics
- Psychoanalytic History and Psychohistory, especially the application of analytical psychology to history
- Cultural complexes
- Psychology of Religion
Primary Interests:
- Issues facing 'looked after' children, particularly trauma, transitions and leaving care
- Assessment of children and adolescents
- Therapeutic Communities
Additional Interests:
- The poetry and other works of Robert Graves
- The relationship between psychodynamic theory and literature
- Attachment and development issues for looked after children;
- Creating effective learning environments;
- Psychoanalytic perspectives on organisational dynamics.
- Executive coaching and consultancy practice in organisations
- Perinatal psychology;
- forensic psychotherapy with victims and perpetrators;
- institutional dynamics;
- psycho-social aspects of child abuse;
- the application of therapeutic models in professional work with children and adolescents.
- Psychoanalysis of groups and organizations;
- Clinical supervision and psychosocial practice in care settings;
- Authority and leadership;
- Popular culture;
- Psychosis.
- The creation of psychological space in group settings;
- The application of linguistic theory to the practice of psychotherapy.
- Fairbairn's object relations theory
- Personal Relations Theory - Fairbairn, Suttie and Macmurray
- An object relations theory of creativity
- An object relations theory of film and dramatic narrative
- Political theory and object relations
- Critical realism and psychoanalysis
- Fairbairn and multiple personality
- Jung's views on education, development, children and childhood
- Theories of psychological development
- History of children and childhood
- Psychological issues related to children's rights
- Child psychoanalysis and psychotherapy
- Qualitative and clinical research methods
- Understanding the therapeutic process
- Depression in adolescence
- The experience of psychoanalytic treatment
- Psychoanalysis and the arts (including film and children's literature)
- Jung and literature and literary theory
- Jung and gender and feminism
- Jung and popular culture
- Psychoanalytic Infant Observation
- Psychoanalytic perspectives on work with children and adolescents
- Organisational Consultation
- Psychoanalytic understanding of Race, Racism and Culture
- Psychoanalytic work with Refugees and Asylum Seekers
- Paternal psychic identifications and developments in adolescent sexuality
- Intrapsychic and interpersonal processes in childbearing and parenting;
- Psychoanalytic concepts applied to primary care;
- Cross-cultural aspects of gender, fertility and childbearing;
- Psycho-social and ethical issues in reproductive technology;
- Perinatal emotional disturbances and psychotherapy;
- Developmental processes;
- Comparative psychoanalysis (British Group of Independent Psychoanalysts)
- Modern Orthodox Theology of Personhood
- Russian Religious Thought of the XIX-XX c. (N. Berdyaev; S. Bulgakov; P. Florensky etc.)
- New Testament Studies (esp. modern personalistic approaches)
- Clinical Supervision
- Psychosomatics and groups
- Psychoanalysis and popular culture
- Psychoanalysis of organisations
- Dynamic Administration
- Therapeutic Communities
- Psychoanalysis of Groups and Organisations
- Leadership and Authority
- Clinical Supervision
- Female development and gender identity;
- Mother-daughter relationship;
- Masculinity;
- Culture and Psychic Structure;
- Bion; masculinity and fascism
- Applications of Psychodynamic Thinking.
- Clinical Understanding of Racist States of Mind.
- Understanding/ Management of Suicidal States of Mind, particularly dynamics of working in Multi-disciplinary Teams
- Psychodynamics of Trauma
- Clinical Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy
Organisational change and cultures of work
Kleinian theory and group dynamics
Psychoanalytic methodology in academic research
Public healthcare policy and implementation
Since 1993 my research activities focussed on: 1. Body image phenomenology in mental illnesses, two new projects currently in planning stage; 2. Evaluation of Body psychotherapy for severe mental illness; two projects currently under way 3. Evaluation of other innovative treatments: e.g. Ego-Consolidation Module for acute psychosis; 4. Transcultural variety of ego-psychopathology in schizophrenia; recent project competed, paper submitted 5. Self harm and service provision, one project currently under way; another project in planning stage. With several publications and through ongoing research activities I am currently one of the leading researchers in the international field of Body Image Phenomenology and Body Psychotherapy in Mental Illness; my book publication on body-psychotherapy (2000) is the first textbook covering the innovative field of body-oriented psychotherapy in psychiatry. Subsequently, I developed and evaluated treatment manuals for novel psychotherapeutic intervention strategies in anorexia nervosa and somatoform disorders and for patients suffering from chronic schizophrenia with marked and dominating negative symptoms. This approach is now recognised by NICE/UK as treatment of choice for negative symptoms in schizophrenia (NICE schizophrenia update, March 2009) Another novel psychological intervention strategy has been developed by myself in cooperation with Prof. Scharfetter (Switzerland) and is going to be evaluated for treatment of acute schizophrenia patients. Other projects: Transcultural variety of ego-pathology; neuropsychological base of cenesthopathic schizophrenia, Self-harm and long-term outcomes.
-Organisational and Group Dynamics
- Leadership development
- Application of psychodynamic thinking to the work environment
- Individual and Organisational Transition
-Women relationship and relatedness to work
- Career development
• Clinical psychoanalysis and the case study
• Psychic survival
• Comparative theories of aggression – survival of the object or the death instinct
• The specificity of psychoanalytic treatment today
• Female sexuality and hysteria today
• French psychoanalysis
• Psychoanalytic paradigm shifts