Beau Steele
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Email
bs22181@essex.ac.uk -
Location
Colchester Campus
Profile
- Psychodynamic approaches to grief, loss, and bereavement
- Working therapeutically with parents following baby or child loss
- Transference–countertransference processes in grief work
- Unconscious and relational dynamics that shape the mourning process
Biography
I am a professional doctorate research student within the department of Psychosocial & Psychoanalytical studies and currently working as a Psychodynamic therapist in private practice. While my clinical work spans a wide range of psychological difficulties, I have a particular interest in supporting clients experiencing grief and loss. Psychodynamically, my work focuses on helping clients explore the unconscious meanings held within their bereavement, the internalised representations of the person they have lost, and the complex relational patterns that surface during mourning. Clinically, my focus includes examining to transference and countertransference dynamics, the impact of attachment ruptures, and the ways grief shapes identity, self-experience, and relationships. My specialist interest in baby and child loss informs both my therapeutic practice and my doctoral research, where I seek to understand how this uniquely profound form of bereavement affects parents inner worlds, their capacity for meaning-making, and the therapeutic relationship itself. This integrated clinicalresearch focus aims to deepen understanding of traumatic loss and to contribute to more sensitive, attuned psychodynamic support for those navigating the devastation of losing a child.
Qualifications
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BA Sociology & Media Studies (1998)
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MA Psychodynamic Counselling & Psychotherapy University of Essex (2025)
Research and professional activities
Thesis
How does the profound grief experience of child loss shape individual meaning-making within the therapeutic relationship, and how can Thematic Analysis (TA) illuminate the psychodynamic processes underlying this experience?
This project explores how the profound grief of baby or young child loss shapes parents’ meaning-making and emotional experience in therapy, examining the psychodynamic processes involved. Grounded in clinical insight, it investigates unconscious defences, attachment ruptures, and transference–countertransference dynamics. By integrating parents’ narratives with psychodynamic understanding, the study addresses a vital gap and aims to support more sensitive therapeutic work with those bereaved.
Supervisor: Joanne M Emmens