People

James Norris

Postgraduate Research Student
Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies
 James Norris

Profile

Ask me about
  • Object relations and neurodevelopmental conditions
  • Adolescence
  • Gender
  • Parent-Infant mental health
  • Parent work and schizoid mechinisms

Biography

James is an ACP-registered psychotherapist, who studied his pre-clinical MA in Psychoanalytic Observation Studies at the Tavistock Clinic and his clinical training at the Birmingham Trust for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy. His research is using clinical material from psychoanalytic psychotherapy with children to consider whether, in specific circumstances, ADHD can be shown to be a dissociative disorder, rather than a neurodevelopmental condition. Outside of this, he is a tutor for Child Development Research on the M7 Psychoanalytic Observation course in Birmingham, through the University of Essex. He works in a West Midlands CAMHS service as a senior child psychotherapist, with professional/research interests in perinatal mental health, trauma, adolescence and the role of the unconscious in macro-social contexts. Publications: Norris, J. (In Review). (Overcoming) Attacks on Thinking: The importance of psychoanalytic thinking in leading the charge against systemic fragmentation of the public mental health sector. Norris, J. (In Review). The Memory Matrix: Towards a Psychoanalytic Understanding for a Spectrum of Dissociative Forgetting. Research and Conference Activities: Beyond the Borders of Public Health Structures and Psychiatric Dogma; University of Essex PGR Conference · 26th May, 2023 Little Ones: How Professionals can Support Parental Bonding in the Early Years; Happy Healthy Lives (Coventry and Warwickshire Health and Care Partnership) · Infant Mental Health Week Conference, 9th Jun, 2021

Qualifications

  • Psychoanalytic Supervision of Child Psychotherapists and Core Professionals Birmingham Trust for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (2018)

  • ACP Training in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy with Children Birmingham Trust for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (2017)

  • PgDip Psychoanalytic Observational Studies (M7) Tavistock and Portman NHS/University of East London (2010)

  • MA Psychoanalytic Studies (M16) Tavistock and Portman NHS/University of East London (2009)

  • BSc Psychosocial Science University of East Anglia (2005)

Research and professional activities

Thesis

ADHD in the Psychoanalytic Consulting Room; Micro-dissociations Suggesting Psychic (Dis)equilibrium in Relation to Trauma

This project attempts, through the use of clinical material from children diagnosed with the inattentive form of ADHD and who have experienced violence in their early years, and an operationalised description of 'micro-dissociations' - taking specific account of the countertransference - to demonstrate this link directly and confirm that, in some cases, ADHD is a misdiagnosis in place of a more accurate diagnosis of dissociative disorder.

Supervisor: Dr. Deborah Wright

Contact

jn21050@essex.ac.uk

Location:

Colchester Campus