Meet our Scholars

Kurt Jacobsen is a Lecturer in Social Sciences and a Faculty Associate in the Political Science Department of the University of Chicago. He is the author or editor of a dozen books, producer/director of half a dozen feature documentaries, and co-editor of Free Associations journal.

Jacob Johanssen is Associate Professor in Communications, St Mary’s University, London. He is the author of several books, including Psychoanalysis and Digital Culture: Audiences, Social Media, and Big Data (2019); Fantasy, Online Misogyny and the Manosphere (2022) and, with Steffen Krüger, Media and Psychoanalysis: A Critical Introduction (2022). Johanssen is editor of the Counterspace section of the journal Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society, sits on the executive committee of the Association for Psychosocial Studies and is a Founding Scholar of the British Psychoanalytic Council. He is also a member of the BPC's Scholars Committee.

I am a critical and cultural theorist who employs psychoanalytic thinking to theorise the interrelation of social and symbolic change, with a particular interest in the philosophy, theory, politics and aesthetics of social reproduction and care. In my monograph, Donald Winnicott and the Politics of Care, published in the Palgrave Macmillan series, Studies in the Psychosocial, in 2022, I investigated what the work of psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott can contribute to understanding, as well as addressing, the crisis of care at the heart of contemporary society. My more recent work and current projects explore the relationship between psychoanalytic thinking and social and symbolic change, centring feminist, queer and decolonial perspectives.

Nini Kerr is a Senior Lecturer in Counselling and Psychotherapy at the University of Edinburgh. She is an accredited trainer and psychodynamic practitioner and has published extensively in the field of psychosocial studies.Her work extends the psychosocial application and potential of Ronald Fairbairn's theories. Notable publications include 'Culture as the Bad Object' (2024) and 'The Tyranny of Relationality' (forthcoming) In 2022, she received the Good Practice Research Award in the Positive Disruptor category, recognising her sustained contributions to innovating and revitalising research practices that promote social justice and equality. She was also awarded the Principal’s Teaching Award Scheme grant for her work on decolonising counselling and psychotherapy.

I am currently a Doctoral student at the University of Essex in the Department of Psychoanalytic and Psychosocial Studies. My research focuses on female subjectivity and psychoanalysis. I am a Psychologist and Counselor with specialisms in clinical psychology, creative and play therapy, special education and Psychodynamic Counselling and Psychotherapy (MA). I specialised in Contemporary Interpersonal Psychodynamic Therapy at the Institute of Contemporary Psychotherapy of Athens. I began my collaboration with ICPA as a trainee and have since worked as an Associate Lecturer and Group Facilitator. I am now Head of Research and Literature, overseeing academic literature, research and professional development.

Annette Kuhn is Emeritus Professor in Film Studies at Queen Mary University of London, a Fellow of the British Academy and a Founding Scholar Member of the British Psychoanalytic Society. She was Director of the ESRC-funded project Cinema Culture in 1930s Britain and is Co-Investigator of Cinema Memory and the Digital Archive (AHRC). Publications include An Everyday Magic: Cinema and Cultural Memory (2002); Family Secrets: Acts of Memory and Imagination (2002), Little Madnesses: Winnicott, Transitional Phenomena and Cultural Experience (2013), Exploring Cinema Memory (2023) and (co-authored with Guy Westwell) Oxford Dictionary of Film Studies (2012, 2020).

I have published widely in the field of psychoanalysis and the humanities, with a particular focus on visual fields. I am currently completing a monograph, ‘Fanon’s Freud’, for Stanford UP I am a trainee member of the British Psychotherapy Foundation and the British Psychoanalytic Council and interested in the space between cultural and clinical thinking.

Co-Editor of the academic journal Women: a Cultural Review Dr Alison Mark E: [email protected] I am a psychoanalytic psychotherapist, BPF member and BPC Registrant. Psychoanalysis, literature, and culture are my main interests. I have written a book on the poet Veronica Forrest-Thomson; a range of other articles, literary and psychoanalytic; and co-edited Contemporary Women’s Poetry: Reading/Writing/Practice with Deryn Rees-Jones. I am an editor of the journal Women: a Cultural Review, and would be pleased to hear of papers and articles that may be suitable for the journal.

Currently pursuing her Professional Doctorate in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy at the University of Essex, Dee brings a rich academic and practical background to her therapeutic work. She holds a postgraduate degree in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy from WPF Therapy, Roehampton University, and completed a Foundation Course in Psychoanalysis at the Institute of Psychoanalysis in London. Additionally, she has earned certificates in Trauma Therapy and Safeguarding. Her experience includes working as an Associate Psychotherapist with young people and students in a university setting, and she is also a certified Reflective Group Facilitator, trained at The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. When working with trauma, she offers EMDR therapy to support her clients in their healing process. She is a dedicated member of the British Psychoanalytic Council (BPC), UK Counselling and Psychotherapy (UKCP), Foundation of Psychotherapy and Counselling (FPC), EMDR UK Association, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA). Research and conference activities: PPS 30th Anniversary Student Research Conference Dreamscapes of Belonging in a Changing World University of Essex, 23rd 24th May 2024 Dee participated with her research paper titled: Voice and the Therapeutic Space: A study of how voice intonation, melody and prosody can be experienced as a dreamscape of the memory and past and was part of PPS Student Conference Committee