Comparative Psychoanalysis

Our activities

The Comparative Psychoanalysis research group hosts a range of events throughout the academic year, including regular online evening seminars and discussions. These events are designed to support an interest in comparative approaches to psychoanalysis by creating dialogues between specialists in different psychoanalytic theories and/or different aspects of the work of a single psychoanalyst.

Group sessions

If you would like to participate or to propose someone to be invited to join this group, please send your/their information (name, academic situation, email) to Ann Addison (abaddi@essex.ac.uk).

The group sessions will be held online on Wednesdays from 5 to 6:30 pm (UK time), for a total of 6 sessions during the year 2026-2027. Please see below for our current programme.

Primarily, we want to promote an international academic gathering, with scholars from diverse fields of research. Participation in this research group is by invitation or by application.

Open to staff, students, and members of research communities beyond the Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies, our group provides an open forum to facilitate lively debate, discussion and interest for those studying psychoanalysis.

Autumn term 2026

• 21 October 2026 - Jon Mills (Series Editor for Routledge Comparative Psychoanalysis Book Series, US) on panconsciousness, and Erik Goodwyn (Psychiatrist, Co-editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Jungian Studies, US) on psychocosmism.
• 18 November 2026 – Roderick Main (Professor, University of Essex, UK) on the esotericism of C. G. Jung, and Nemanja Radulovic (Professor, University of Belgrade, Serbia) on the esotericism of Dimitrije Mitrinovic.

Spring term 2027

• 20 January 2027 – Ann Addison (PhD, University of Essex, UK) and Dr Andrew Briggs (Consultant child and adolescent psychoanalytic psychotherapist and organizational consultant, UK) on Jung and Bion.
• 17 February 2027 - Jan Abram (Visiting Professor, UCL, UK) and Bob Hinshelwood (Emeritus Professor, University of Essex, UK) on Winnicott and Klein.

Summer term 2027

• 21 April 2027 – Charlie Gere (Professor, University of Lancaster, UK) on Lacan and China, and Chenyang Wang (PhD, University of Essex, UK) on Lacan and his notions of time.
• 19 May 2027 – Dr Louise Braddock (Co-convener of the Interdisciplinary Seminars in Psychoanalysis in St John’s College Research Centre, Oxford, UK) and Arianna Pulsoni (University of Essex, UK) on Klein, Wollheim and the mother’s body.

The Comparative Psychoanalysis book series

Comparative Psychoanalysis studies controversy and dialogue in psychoanalysis.  Intellectual, personal, and institutional conflict are endemic to the history of psychoanalysis. Alongside this there are creative efforts to establish understanding and communication among differing perspectives. 

We welcome proposals for books using comparative methodologies to explore the field of psychoanalysis regardless of topic, theoretical or clinical orientation, or application to the behavioral sciences and humanities including historical reassessments, conceptual clarification, clinical exploration, reflections on the future of applied psychoanalytic thought, and attempts to articulate the conditions for fruitful dialogue. 

All subject matters in the arts and humanities, philosophy, anthropology, cultural studies, and the human sciences are ripe for comparative investigation within the frameworks of theoretical, clinical, and applied psychoanalysis.  As an inherently interdisciplinary field of study psychoanalysis requires a robust understanding of comparative methodology.

Controversial discussions and criticism are invited.  In the spirit of pluralism, Comparative Psychoanalysis is open to any theoretical school in the history of the psychoanalytic movement that offers novel critique, integration, and important insights in comparative scholarship.