Dr Deborah Wright
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Email
dlswri@essex.ac.uk -
Location
5A.206, Colchester Campus
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Academic support hours
Southend Room GB.3.54, 12-1 Tuesday Colchester Room 5A.204 12-1 Friday
Profile
Biography
Deborah Wright, PGCHEP FHEA, D.Psychodyn.Psych. is a psychotherapist trained at the Westminster Pastoral Foundation and is PPS Director of Education PPS Director of Undergraduate Studies Programme Director for the Professional Doctorate Programmes: Doctorate in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Doctorate in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Doctorate in Analytical Psychology Doctorate in Psychodynamic Counselling Lecturer and Module Supervisor on MA Psychodynamic Counselling Programme. Lecturer and Module Supervisor on BA Psychodynamic Practice, BA Childhood Studies and TCTO Therapeutic Communications and Therapeutic Organisations as well as teaching on MA Child hood studies. She previously worked as a Deputy Manager, staff trainer and training consultant in residential care for people with learning difficulties and mental health problems. She is a trained artist and her patient and client work, as well as her academic and art work, relate to humans’ relationship with their environment. British Psychoanalytic Council (B.P.C.) 'Scholars' Network Spotlight: Dr Deborah Wright' : https://www.bpc.org.uk/professionals/bpc-memberships/scholars-network/scholars-spotlights/scholars-network-spotlight-dr-deborah-wright/ Registered member of: British Psychoanalytic Council (B.P.C.) The Foundation for Psychotherapy & Counselling (F.P.C.) Registered Member, Member British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy (M.B.A.C.P.) Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (F.H.E.A.) Member of the Association for Psychosocial Studies (A.P.S.) Member of the Association for Psychoanalysis of Culture and Society (A.P.C.S.) BPC Scholars Network - In the 'Clinician Scholar' category of the Scholars Network for existing clinical BPC (British Psychoanalytic Council) registrant. Member of Cultural Literacy Everywhere (C.L.E.) Additional Roles in PPS: Director/Convenor of the PPS Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies Clinical Research Group Honorary Secretary of the PPS EDI (Equality Diversity Inclusion) Committee Organiser and Facilitator of the PA123 Student enrichment Club Additional Roles: Editorial Board, ‘New Associations’ Journal, BPC (British Psychoanalytic Council) Member of the American Friends of the Sigmund Freud Museum Committee, Vienna Previous Teaching Responsibilities at the Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex: Understanding Individuals Groups and Organisations : An Introduction to Psychodynamic Concepts (PA123) Child, Adolescent and Adult Development (PA125) Trauma and Recovery: A Psychodynamic Approach (PA223) Advanced Psychodynamic Observation and Reflective Practice (PA224) Violence and Projective Processes in Individuals and Society (PA225) Work-based Learning for Therapeutic Care (PA227)
Qualifications
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Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education Practice (PGCHEP) University of Essex, (2022)
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Doctorate in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy University of Essex,
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Fellowship of the Higher Education Teaching Academy (FHEA) University of Essex, (2020)
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Postgraduate Diploma in Psychodynamic studies/WPF Qualification in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy University of Roehampton,
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BA (Hons) in Visual Communication Edinburgh College of Art and Design,
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Art Psychotherapy Foundation Certificate Goldsmiths University of London,
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Certificate in Counselling Skills & Attitudes Westminster Pastoral Foundation (WPF),
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Skills for Clinical & Case Supervision The Skills Development Service,
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Certificate in Supervision Level 2 (Intermediate) Norman Mark Training,
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Understanding Organisational Dynamics Westminster Pastoral Foundation (WPF),
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Certificate in Delivering Training at Foundation Level (N.V.Q.) in a Care Setting Malvern Partnership,
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Child Protection and Safeguarding London Borough of Hounslow,
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Understanding Early Years Outcomes London Borough of Hounslow,
Appointments
University of Essex
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Programme Director for the Professional Doctorate Programmes: Doctorate in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, Doctorate in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy, Doctorate in Analytical Psychology, Doctorate in Psychodynamic Counselling, Lecturer, MA Psychodynamic Counselling Programme, Department Disability Liaison Officer (DDLO), Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex (1/9/2021 - present)
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Lecturer in Therapeutic Studies on BA Psyhcodynamic Practice (Therapeutic Care) and BA Childhood Studies Programmes, Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex (1/8/2019 - 1/10/2023)
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Assistant Lecturer (G T A)), Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex (1/10/2016 - 31/7/2019)
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Senior Lecturer, Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies, University Of Essex (1/10/2023 - present)
Research and professional activities
Research interests
Freud, Klein, Bion, Winnicott and Object Relations
Human relations with the non-human world
Psychosocial and psychoanalytic perspective on humans’ relationships with their environment
Childrens’ and residential care clients’ relationship with their (bed)rooms
Patients’ relationship with the consulting room
Spatialisation, environmental usage and political connotations
Houses, homes, safe and un-safe dwelling places and room spaces
Conferences and presentations
‘A Safe Enough ‘Home’ Environment Now and in the Future: Self-sufficiency, Off-grid Green Living, Climate Change and Mars’
Invited presentation, The ‘Nature and Its Discontents: SIPP/ISSP 2025 Conference’ (International Society of Psychoanalysis and Philosophy), University of Essex + Freud Museum UK, 25/6/2025
The Despair and Hope of ‘Home’: The Enablement of a Safe Enough ‘Home’ Space now and in the Future
Invited presentation, Hope and Despair: Crisis and Opportunity Annual Conference of the Association for Psychosocial Studies (APS), St Mary’s University, London, 10/6/2025
‘The historiography of ‘Home’: Paleontological, historical, anthropological and clinical meanings of ‘home’, building psychoanalytic thinking on capacity for inhabiting an ‘inner home life’
Invited presentation, The European Society for the History of the Human Sciences (ESHHS) 43rd conference: 25th to 28th June 2024, University of Essex: ‘‘Inner life’ and its historiography: history, science and history of the human sciences’, Colchester, United Kingdom, 28/6/2024
‘Art To Formulate And Art To Illustrate; Methodological Use Of Art Work As A Psychosocial And Psychoanalytic Methodology, As Well As The Higher Education Teaching And Learning Context, And Case Study Research Methods For Data Analysis’
Invited presentation, The Joint Conference of Association for Psychosocial Studies (APS) and Association for Psychoanalysis Culture and Society (APCS) 2024: ‘Learning or not learning from experience: Psychosocial approaches to researching and experiential learning’, London, United Kingdom, 17/6/2024
The Virtual Consulting Room Space as a Chamber that Echoes the Physical Room and Additional Potentially Spatialised Home-safety
‘Association for the Psychoanalysis of Culture & Society’ (APCS) 2023 Conference ‘Orphans of the Real: Emerging from the Echo Chambers Psychosocial Perspectives’, Rutgers University Continuing Education Conference Centre New Brunswick, NJ, 27/10/2023
‘PPS PA123 Club’ in the ‘Students as Active Participants’ section
Invited presentation, University of Essex Directors of Education Insights Network, Wivenhoe House Hotel, 17/10/2023
‘Digital Pedagogical Creativity: An Online Higher Education Student Enrichment Club Model to Support Students’
Cultural Literacy Everywhere: 'Digital Creativity 2023 Conference' 15th – 17th June, University of Oslo., 17/6/2023
‘Creativity and Spatialisation Workshop'
Invited presentation, TCTC (The Consortium of Therapeutic Communities) ‘Ideas in Therapeutic Communities 4 – Beyond the Medical Model The Therapeutic Community and Alternatives to Psychiatry, Birmingham and Online Conference 2022, 25/10/2022
Presentation and Book launch of new book, Wright, D. L. S. (2022) The Physical and Virtual Space of the Consulting Room: Room-object Spaces Oxon/New York: Routledge
Invited presentation, Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies Open Seminar Series Event, University of Essex, 11/10/2022
The Virtual Consulting Space: Room-object Spaces and the Physical and Virtual space of the Consulting room
Psychoanalytic Reflections, Open Event Online, Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex, 12/7/2022
Feminine Consulting Room-object Spaces; Unconscious aspects of the creation of the clinical consulting room, spatialised in the physical and the virtual space of the Consulting room - unsafe room spaces, moving towards safety.
Invited presentation, ‘Feminisms and Spaces: a depth psychology enquiry Conference July 8th – Amnesty International Building, Shoreditch, London and online’., 8/7/2022
‘Dwelling spaces as sites for the Virtual Consulting room space: Psychotherapy in the Dwelling room-object spaces enabling in-dwelling’.
Invited presentation, Cultural Literacy Everywhere (CLE) 2022 ‘DWELLING Symposium’ University College Dublin/ Online (Zoom)., 13/5/2022
‘Drawers, secret memories, and the spatial array of the inside and outside of drawers, the brain, the body and the mind in Room-object spatialisation’
Invited presentation, the ‘P o c k e t s, P o u c h e s & S e c r e t D r a w e r s’ Conference at IMLR (Institute of Modern Languages Research, School of Advanced Study, University of London, 4/12/2021
What does a psychodynamic psychotherapist do? How do you create a vibrant, fulfilling career as a psychotherapist?
Invited presentation, WPF Therapy Yearly Free Lecture for WPF Pre-Clinical Certificate Students, 4/11/2021
‘As it was in the beginning, so it shall be at the end; A psychosocial perspective on spatialised dying bodies in their final rooms (End Room-objects) - the de-formation of objects and de-spatialised Post Room-objects at the ending stages’.
Invited presentation, The Association of Psychosocial Studies 2021 APS Psychosocial Bodies Conference., Venue: University of Essex (Virtual), 2/7/2021
Gendering room-spatialisation in the physical and, post COVID-19, the virtual work room spaces of the psychotherapeutic consulting room and the higher education teaching room’
Invited presentation, The 2021 Gender, Work and organisation Virtual Conference (University of Kent) Stream: Gendered Spaces, Places and Temporalities of Work: Methodological Directions and Challenges (Session 4- Psycho-social spaces, culture and gender)., 1/7/2021
Spatialising playfulness in the time of COVID 19 in the psychotherapy and higher education virtual/on-line room spaces; clinical and pedagogical vicissitudes
Invited presentation, PLAYFULNESS Interdisciplinary Approaches to Cultural Literacy CLE 2021 A Virtual Symposium Thursday 13th – Friday 14th May 2021, Virtual Conference on Zoom, London, 14/5/2021
'The spatial array of the brain, the mind, rooms and places in the time of Covid-19'.
Invited presentation, Cross University Research Event: Brain and Mind https://www.essex.ac.uk/event-series/cure, University of Essex, 23/6/2020
Art to formulate and art to illustrate: methodological use of art work in theory building in empirical social science research
Invited presentation, Cultural Literacy Symposium: ‘Research in the Arts, the Arts in Research’, University of Łódź,,, Łódź, Poland, 15/5/2020
The geography, gendering, role and room-spatialisation of the physical space, and post COVID-19, the virtual space, of the higher education teaching room
Invited presentation, The Faculty of Social Sciences inter-disciplinary workshop: ‘Research on education and pedagogy’, University of Essex, Colchester, United Kingdom, 11/5/2020
Stages of the Room-spatialisation Matrix in Clinical Practice
PPS Research Conference 2019: The Unconscious and Everyday life., Colchester, United Kingdom, 30/5/2019
Spatialisation and the Fomenting of Political Violence
Panel Presentation of Chapter at Book Launch of book Fomenting Political Violence – Fantasy, Language, Media, Action, London, United Kingdom, 22/2/2019
Why a 'Psychoanalytic Society'?: The 'Enterprise' of Psychoanalysis, Wollheim and the Mind
Psychoanalysis Society Open Forum, Colchester, United Kingdom, 18/10/2018
Spatialisation and the Physical Space of the Consulting room
PPS Research Conference 2018: Interdisciplinary Interventions in Depth Psychology, Colchester, United Kingdom, 31/5/2018
Rooms as Replacements for People: The Consulting Room as a Room Object
– ‘Replacement Conference’, Birkbeck (Dept. Culture and Languages, School of Arts, The Birkbeck Institute for Social Research, Birkbeck Research in Aesthetics of Kinship and Community), London, United Kingdom, 10/12/2017
The Psyche and the Social: Marking out Meaning in the Physical Space of the Consulting Room
CPS Research Conference, Colchester, United Kingdom, 1/6/2017
The Physical Space of the Consulting Room – Safety of Violence? Political Violence Legacy and Fomenting Feelings in the Clinical Setting
Fomenting Political Violence Conference, Colchester, United Kingdom, 10/9/2016
Being in the Consulting Room: A Study of the Physical Space of the Consulting Room and Its Impact on the Therapeutic process
CPS Research Conference 2015, ‘Depth Psychology in Modern Perspective’,, Colchester, United Kingdom, 28/5/2015
Teaching and supervision
Current teaching responsibilities
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Personal and Professional Development 3 (HS784)
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Counselling Contexts: Preparing for Placement (PA215)
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Psychodynamic Observation for Counsellors (PA216)
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Personal Development (PA221)
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The counselling relationship and counselling techniques (PA256)
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Non-Psychodynamic Approaches to Practice (PA700)
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Thesis (PA800)
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Literature Review (PA804)
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Research Methodologies and Research Design (PA805)
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Research Proposal (PA806)
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Research Processes (PA808)
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Advanced Clinical Practice (PA809)
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Critical Debates in Childhood and Childhood Studies (PA943)
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Psychodynamic Theory and Practice 1 (PA961)
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Psychodynamic Theory and Practice 2 (PA963)
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Different Approaches (PA966)
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Personal Development (PA967)
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Professional Development 1 (PA968)
Previous supervision
Degree subject: Analytical Psychology
Degree type: Professional Doctorate
Awarded date: 25/2/2025
Degree subject: Psychodynamic Counselling
Degree type: Professional Doctorate
Awarded date: 17/2/2025
Degree subject: Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy
Degree type: Professional Doctorate
Awarded date: 14/2/2025
Publications
Journal articles (4)
Wright, DLS., (2025). ‘Psychoanalyst: Clinician and Citizen’ David Bell interviewed by Deborah L.S. Wright. New Associations Journal (Issue 46), 12-13
Wright, DLS., (2024). ‘Masculinity and Psychoanalysis: Karl Figlio in conversation with Deborah Wright’. New Associations Journal (40), 1-1
Kegerreis, S., Wright, DLS., Hall, S., Horne, M., Langley, J., Norris, J., Quaile, E. and Shemesh, R., (2023). Becoming a researcher: psychotherapists’ experience of starting a professional doctorate. Journal of Child Psychotherapy. 49 (3), 474-489
Wright, D., (2023). ‘The Queen is dead, long live the King: Queen Elizabeth II’s Funeral procession, lying in state, viewing queues and Spatialisation’. New Associations Journal (40), 9-9
Books (1)
Wright, DLS., (2022). The Physical and Virtual Space of the Consulting Room Room-object Spaces. Routledge. 1000591972. 9781000591972
Book chapters (4)
Wright, DLS., (2024). ‘The Virtual Consulting Room-object space as a Virtual Home: Spatialised Virtual Good Home-object and Bad Home-object Elements and Art’ (‘Desarrollo del concepto de espacializacion: la transferencia en el espacio de la consulta y enel espacio virtual. El objecto-Hogar Bueno, el objecto-Hogar Malo y el arte’). In: ‘Time and Space. Perspectives from Psychoanalysis and Art’ (‘Tiempo y espacio. Perspectivas desde el psicoanalisis y el arte’). Editors: Fenieux, CG., . Palvora Editorial. 9789569441943
Wright, DLS., (2024). Dwelling-Spaces as Sites for the Virtual Consulting-Room. In: Dwelling Cultural Representations of Inhabited Places. Editors: Petőcz, OK. and Segal, N., . Palgrave Macmillan. p289- p300. 3031568397. 9783031568398
Wright, D., (2019). Spatialisation and the Fomenting of Political Violence. In: Fomenting Political Violence – Fantasy, Language, Media, Action. Editors: Kruger, S., Figlio, K. and Richards, B., . Palgrave Macmillan
Wright, D., (2018). Rooms as Replacements for People: The Consulting Room as a Room Object. In: On Replacement - Cultural, Social and Psychological Representations. Editors: Owen, J. and Segal, N., . Palgrave Macmillan
Reports and Papers (1)
Wright, D., (2020). ‘Room-object Spatialising in the Time of COVID-19: The Physical Space and the Remote, Virtual/On-line Space of the Consulting Room’ BPC (British Psychoanalytic Council) Scholars Newsletter https://www.bpc.org.uk/professionals/scholars-network/latest-scholars-newsletter/
Other (2)
Wright, DLS., (2024).Masculinity and Psychoanalysis: Karl Figlio in conversation with Deborah Wright. New Associations(44)
Wright, D., (2023).The Queen is dead, long live the King: Spatialisation following the Queen’s death. New Associations(40)
Contact
Academic support hours:
Southend Room GB.3.54, 12-1 Tuesday Colchester Room 5A.204 12-1 Friday
