The Association for Psychosocial Studies

How to publish in the Journal of Psychosocial Studies?
2023-12-07 10:00 - 11:00 (Europe/London)
Association of Psychosocial Studies: How to publish in the Journal of Psychosocial Studies?

Date: 7th December, 2023
Time: 10 – 11am UK time/ 3.30 – 4.30pm IST
Where: Zoom
Register here

Getting your researched published in a journal can feel daunting, especially if you are no longer in an academic environment.
In this event, the Editors of the Journal of Psychosocial Studies – Liz Frost, University of the West of England, UK and David W. Jones, Open University, UK – will walk you through the big questions about whether the Journal of Psychosocial Studies a good home for your research. Meet the Editors and discuss the submission process, what the journal is looking for and more advice for Early Career Researchers.

Introductory remarks by Rhea Gandhi, PhD Candidate at the University of Edinburgh.

Here are some of the things that will be addressed:

· What is psychosocial?
· What kind of research is the JPS looking for?
· What qualifies as psychosocial research?
· Themes for submissions

Questions for the Open Space:

· What kind of articles fit into the Open space vs. Reearch. What separates these spaces?
· Why publish in the Open space?
The aim of this session is to demystify the process of academic publishing and increase accessibility. So bring all your questions, we look forward to having you there!

Emeritus Prof Stephen Frosh: Psychosocial studies with psychoanalysis (Reading Group)
2024-01-24 18:00 - 19:30
We are incredibly happy to invite you to join us for the first APS online reading group of the year! We are starting this academic year with Stephen Frosh’s important work on some of the principles of psychosocial thinking, including its transdisciplinarity and criticality and its interest in ethics and reflexivity.
Stephen Frosh will be there to talk about his work and in particular his paper:
`Psychosocial studies with psychoanalysis’ (Journal of Psychosocial Studies, 2019)
https://bristoluniversitypressdigital.com/view/journals/jps/12/1-2/article-p101.xml

Please book here:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/emeritus-prof-stephen-frosh-psychosocial-studies-with-psychoanalysis-tickets-781427790557

Abstract:
Psychosocial studies is methodologically and theoretically diverse, drawing on a wide range of intellectual resources. However, psychoanalysis has often taken a privileged position within this diversity, because of its well-developed conceptual vocabulary that can be put to use to theorise the psychosocial subject. Its practices have become a model for some aspects of psychosocial work, especially in relation to its focus on intense study of individuals, its explicit engagement with ethical relations, and its traversing of disciplinary boundaries across the arts, humanities and social sciences.
This article begins with a brief description of some principles of psychosocial thinking, including its transdisciplinarity and criticality and its interest in ethics and in reflexivity. It then explores the place of psychoanalysis in this genealogy, presenting the case for psychoanalysis’ continuing contribution to the development of psychosocial studies. It is argued that this case is a strong one, but that the critique of psychoanalysis from the discursive, postcolonial, feminist and queer perspectives that are also found in psychosocial studies is important. The claim will be made that the engagement between psychoanalysis and its psychosocial critics is fundamentally productive. Even though it generates real tensions, these tensions are necessary and significant, reflecting genuine struggles over how best to understand the socially constructed human subject
Author biography:
Stephen Frosh is Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Birkbeck, where he founded the Department of Psychosocial Studies. He has a background in academic and clinical psychology and was Consultant Clinical Psychologist and latterly Vice Dean at the Tavistock Clinic, London, throughout the 1990s.
He is the author of many books and papers, including Hauntings: Psychoanalysis and Ghostly Transmissions (Palgrave MacMillan, 2013) and Hate and the Jewish Science: Anti-Semitism, Nazism and Psychoanalysis (Palgrave MacMillan, 2005). His recent book Antisemitism and Racism: Ethical Challenges for Psychoanalysis, was released last year by Bloomsbury. His book, Those Who Come After: Postmemory, Acknowledgement and Forgiveness (Palgrave, 2019) won the 2023 British Psychological Society award for the best Academic Monograph. His current research interests are in processes of acknowledgement and recognition after social violence and in questions of social identity. He is co-editor of the Palgrave Handbook of Psychosocial Studies.
Stephen is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, an Academic Associate of the British Psychoanalytical Society, a Founding Member of the Association of Psychosocial Studies, and an Honorary Member of the Institute of Group Analysis. He has been Visiting Professor at the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa, and at the University of São Paulo, Brazil.
This event is free – but please make a donation if you can to help cover our costs so that we can continue to make events like this accessible to all.

Violence of Politics and Politics of Violence
2024-02-01 15:00 - 17:00 | 1.264 Usha Kasera Lecture Theatre, Old College South Bridge Edinburgh EH8 9YL, 1.264 Usha Kasera Lecture Theatre, Old College South Bridge Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Edinburgh, EH8 9YL, United Kingdom

2024-03-13 14:00 - 2024-07-12 16:00
DECOLONISING COUNSELLING & PSYCHOTHERAPY – REFLECTIONS FROM PSYCHOSOCIAL PERSPECTIVES

This public-facing seminar series challenges Eurocentric perspectives in traditional therapy and develop politically progressive, decolonial alternatives in line with University- and sector-wide decolonisation efforts. It examines the psychosocial impacts of colonial violence on contemporary socio-political dynamics. It is funded by the Principal’s Teaching Awards Scheme and is led by Nini Kerr in collaboration with Rhea Gandhi and Mariya Levitanus.

You can register for any/all of our events here – they are free and open to everyone!

Programme Schedule:

13th March, Wednesday, 2-4pm: Nini Kerr on ‘Culture as the Bad Object’ and Erica Burman on ‘Child as Method as a resource for decolonial theory and practice‘ – G.07 Meadows Lecturer Theater, Doorway 4

[Special Book Launch Event] 18th March, Monday, 4.30-6.30pm: ‘The Rebel’s Clinic’ by Adam Shatz. Register here.

12th April, Friday, 2-4pm: Mariya Levitanus on ‘Beyond the Norm: Decolonial Queer Perspectives on Counselling and Psychotherapy’ – Sydney Smith Lecture Room – Doorway 1

10th May, Friday, 2-4pm: Rhea Gandhi & Isaac Yu on ‘Therapy as Political Resistance’ – Sydney Smith Lecture Room – Doorway 1

5th June, Wednesday, 2-4pm – Lynne Layton ‘Social Psychoanalysis, Normative Unconscious Processes, and an Ethic of Repair [room tbc]

12th July, Friday, 2-4pm – Sheyda Esmali on ‘Unravelling Xenophobia Psychoanalytically’ [room tbc]

We look forward to seeing you there!

Project Team:
Nini, Rhea, and Mariya

Prof Tony Jefferson: The Free Association Narrative Interview (FANI)
2024-03-27 17:00 - 19:00
Registration: Click here for more details
Join us in our APS online reading group, as we listen to Emeritus Prof Tony Jefferson’s reading of Panic and Perjury and FANI method
We are incredibly happy to invite you to join us for our next APS online reading group! We are welcoming Tony Jefferson to share his important work on the Free Association Narrative Interview (FANI) Method as a key methodology for psychosocial research.
Tony Jefferson is an Emeritus Professor at Keele University who has researched and published widely on questions to do with youth subcultures, the media, policing, race and crime, masculinity, fear of crime, racial violence and psychosocial methodology. He worked with Stuart Hall and others to produce Resistance Through Rituals (1976/2006) and Policing the Crisis (1978/2013). His books on Policing include Controlling the Constable (1984/2023) and Interpreting Policework (1987/2023), both co-authored with Roger Grimshaw, and The Case Against Paramilitary Policing (1990/2023).
His fear of crime project, with Wendy Hollway, produced the novel Free Association Narrative Interview (FANI) method and a subsequent book, Doing Qualitative Research Differently (2000/2012). Teaching psychosocial criminology with David Gadd produced their jointly authored text, Psychosocial Criminology (2007). His latest book is Stuart Hall, Conjunctural Analysis and Cultural Criminology (2021). He has held Visiting Professorships in the United States, Australia, Denmark and Sweden and was a one time European editor of the journal Theoretical Criminology.
To prepare for this reading, please read:
‘Panic and Perjury: A psychosocial exploration of agency’ by Hollway and Jefferson, 2005
https://oro.open.ac.uk/22982/
Abstract:
The primary aim of this article is to explore the predicament of one man, Vince, in difficult circumstances, in order to produce a psychosocial analysis that could contribute to the understanding of agency . In the process we note the role of what we prefer to call affect, rather than emotion, in most contexts. If emotions are, as Blackman and Cromby (2007: 6) suggest, ‘those patterned brain/body responses that are culturally recognizable and provide some unity, stability and coherence to the felt dimensions of our relational encounters’, it is perhaps unsurprising that, because we are focusing on unconscious dynamics in this chapter, the term affect proves more relevant to our analysis than the emotions of anger and shame that are, arguably, the core suppressed emotions in the account. Vince himself never talked in terms of specific emotions, but rather, in line with Blackman and Cromby’s definition that ‘feelings register intensive experiences as subjective experience’ (ibid), of how he was experiencing his painful world. In highlighting his embodied ‘sickness’, and the accompanying anxiety, we focus on the affective dimension. In this usage, anxiety is an affective state.

Lynne Layton on 'Social Psychoanalysis, Normative Unconscious Processes, and an Ethic of Repair.
2024-06-05 14:00 - 15:00
We are delighted to invite you to join us for a public lecture by Lynne Layton on ‘Social Psychoanalysis, Normative Unconscious Processes, and an Ethic of Repair. The lecture is part of the seminar series on ‘Decolonising Counselling and Psychotherapy: Reflections from Psychosocial Perspectives’, organised by Nini Kerr, Rhea Gandhi, and Mariya Levitanus, in collaboration with the Association for Psychosocial Studies.

When: Wednesday, 5th June, from 2-3pm.
How: MS Teams – please contact Rhea Gandhi for the link to join the event

Session abstract
This talk takes up the question of what a social psychoanalysis might look like in the clinic, in our psychoanalytic institutions, and in our society. Drawing on some earlier psychoanalysts’ concepts that have connected the social world and the psychic world, I introduce the concept of normative unconscious processes, which addresses the ways that racism, heterosexism, classism and other social inequalities are unconsciously replicated in the clinic. The talk then explores how therapists can resist unconsciously replicating such cultural inequalities. We will then look outside the clinic at how cultural inequalities manifest in the wider circles of contemporary institutional and sociocultural life. Here, too, we will explore how we, as citizens and therapists, both unconsciously replicate and can resist replicating harmful, unequal relations. We will think together about how to address the places in our different subjective and communal worlds where harm has been done, and engage together on how to make repair.

Author bio:
Lynne Layton has a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and in Clinical Psychology. She is a psychoanalyst and has taught and supervised at the Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis. She is also a Corresponding Member of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Psychiatry Department at Harvard Medical School. Lynne is the author of Who’s That Girl? Who’s That Boy? Clinical Practice Meets Postmodern Gender Theory, and co-editor of 3 books: Narcissism and the Text: Studies in Literature and the Psychology of Self; Bringing the Plague: Toward a Postmodern Psychoanalysis; and Psychoanalysis, Class and Politics: Encounters in the Clinical Setting. From 2004-2017, she was co-editor of the journal Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society and she is currently an associate editor of Psychoanalytic Dialogues. She is a past-President of Psychoanalysis for Social Responsibility and founded Reflective Spaces/Material Places-Boston, a group of psychodynamic therapists committed to community mental health and social justice. Lynne is on the organizing committee of a national Black-led reparations campaign. She is the author of the 2020 book Toward a Social Psychoanalysis: Culture, Character, and Normative Unconscious Processes, winner of a 2021 book award from the American Academy and Board of Psychoanalysis.

Please contact Rhea Gandhi for the link to join the event.

APS-APCS 2024 Conference
2024-06-17 - 2024-06-18 | St. Mary’s University, Twickenham, Waldegrave Road, London, TW1 4SX, United Kingdom
Psychosocial approaches to researching and experiential learning

A joint conference of the Association for Psychosocial Studies and the Association for the Psychoanalysis of Culture and Society
17th-18th June 2024
St Mary’s University, Twickenham, London TW1 4SX
Conference programme: https://www.conftool.net/aps-apcs-2024/sessions.php
Registration: https://www.conftool.net/aps-apcs-2024/
Registration information: https://www.psychosocial-studies-association.org/registration/
Conference enquiries: conference2024@protonmail.com

Call for papers: Confronting Violence: Exploring the Psychosocial Dynamics of Gender-Based Aggression
2025-01-17 08:00 - 17:00
Call for papers:
Confronting Violence: Exploring the Psychosocial Dynamics of Gender-Based Aggression
Special Edition of The Journal of Psychosocial Studies

The recent report by the National Police Chief’s Council on Violence against Women and Girls has once again highlighted the critical nature of this issue. Declaring the scale of the problem as a national emergency, comparable to terrorism, the report underscores alarming statistics: one in six homicides in England and Wales is linked to domestic abuse, and 20% of all police-recorded crimes—over one million offences annually—are categorized as violence against women and girls. These offences include sexual assault, stalking, harassment, domestic violence, and controlling and coercive behaviour, with the true total estimated to be twice as high.
We believe that psychosocial perspectives are essential for understanding gender-based violence, as it is deeply rooted in social and cultural contexts and lives within the intimate worlds of both perpetrators and victims. We seek articles that engage with the inseparable interplay between psychological and social factors, and offer fresh insights into the complex dynamics that drive these harmful behaviours.
Particular topics that might be included are (for example):

Sexual assault and rape
Stalking
Coercion and control
Institutional misogyny
INCELS
Online abuse and misogyny
Domestic abuse
The impact of abuse and violence
Preventing VAWG
Harassment
Violence in Schools
Policing and VAWG
Intergenerational impacts of abuse and violence

We can publish both formal research papers (that would need to be written in the expected style and sent out for independent review) and open space articles (less formal articles, that might be based on personal experiences and reflection that might take the form of prose, poetry, visual art).
Details are here: https://bristoluniversitypressdigital.com/view/journals/jps/jps-overview.xml?tab_body=instructions-for-authors

Interested contributors should:
Send an abstract of around 500 words to Pete Harris (p00096516@brookes.ac.uk) by Friday 17th January 2025. Please make it clear which type of paper you hope to submit. We are likely to be expecting draft of selected papers to be submitted around November 2025.You will be informed within one month of receipt whether we invite the full submission. Interested contributors are welcome to contact us with queries.

Special Edition Editors

Jane Meyrick – University of West of England (Jane.Meyrick@uwe.ac.uk)
David Gadd – University of Manchester (david.gadd@manchester.ac.uk
Peter Harris – Oxford Brookes University (p00096516@brookes.ac.uk)
David W Jones – The open university (david.jones@open.ac.uk)
Ioanna Gouseti – Oxford Brookes University (p0096557@brookes.ac.uk)
There are more details about the journal here: https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/journals/journal-of-psychosocial-studies

Performing (Post) Pandemic Grief: Prof Fintan Walsh
2025-02-19 16:00 - 17:30
Register here

We are incredibly happy to invite you to join us for our next APS online reading group! We are delighted to welcome Fintan Walsh to present his research on the reckoning with grief in pandemic theatre.
Please join us to learn more about the vital contribution of theatrical performance to the ongoing work of public mourning in the wake of COVID-19.
In advance of the session, please access Prof Walsh’s new book: Performing Grief in Pandemic Theatres. The text is quite short but we especially invite participants to read sections 1, 4 and Coda.
Abstract:
This Element explores how theatre responded to the death and loss produced by the COVID-19 pandemic, by innovating forms and spaces designed to support us in grief. It considers how theatre grieved for itself, for the dead, for lost ways of living, while also imagining and enacting new modes of being together. Even as it reckoned with its own demise, theatre endeavoured to collectivise grief by performing a range of functions more commonly associated with funerary, health and social care services, which buckled under restrictions and neglect. These pandemic theatres show how grief cannot only be let mourn over individual losses in private, but how it must also seep into the public sphere to fight to save critical services, institutions, communities and art forms, including theatre itself.
Author biography:
Fintan Walsh is Professor of Performing Arts and Humanities at Birkbeck, University of London, where is the founding Director of Birbeck Creative Practice Lab and Head of the School of Creative Arts, Culture and Communication. His research focuses on theatre, performance and cross-disciplinary arts practice, with monographs including Performing Grief in Pandemic Theatres (Cambridge University Press, 2024), Performing the Queer Past: Public Possessions (Methuen Drama, 2023), Theatre & Therapy (Methuen Drama, 2013; expanded and reissued 2024), Queer Performance and Contemporary Ireland: Dissent and Disorientation (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), and Male Trouble: Masculinity and the Performance of Crisis (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010). Edited volumes include Writing Queer Performance: Contemporary Texts and Documents (Methuen Drama, 2025), Theatres of Contagion: Transmitting Early Modern to Contemporary (Methuen Drama, 2020), That Was Us: Contemporary Irish Theatre and Performance (Oberon Books, 2013), Performance, Identity and the Neo-Political Subject (with Matthew Causey, Routledge, 2013), Queer Notions: New Plays and Performances from Ireland (Cork University Press, 2010), and Crossroads: Performance Studies and Irish Culture (with Sara Brady, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). Fintan is the founder and Senior Editor of the series Elements in Contemporary Performance Texts (Cambridge University Press) and is a former Senior Editor of the journal Theatre Research International (Cambridge University Press).

Rising Authoritarianism and the Implications for Counselling and Psychotherapy, Friday, 11th April 2025
2025-04-10 10:00 - 13:30
Rising Authoritarianism and the Implications for Counselling and Psychotherapy, Friday, 11th April 2025

We warmly invite students, staff, and the wider therapeutic community to a mini symposium exploring the impact of rising authoritarianism on counselling and psychotherapy. As political landscapes shift globally, we will examine how authoritarian dynamics influence personal and collective psychosocial wellbeing, therapeutic practice, and the profession itself.

Join us for a morning of insightful discussions with leading thinkers in the field by registering here.

Date: Friday, 11th April 2025
Time: 10:00 AM – 1:30 PM
Venue: Hybrid; Mclaren Stuart Room, Old College, University of Edinburgh
Please note: this event is hybrid for accessibility – it is free and open to all. We highly encourage in-person attendance for those in and around Edinburgh.

Symposium Programme

10:00 – 10:10 AM | Opening Remarks by Nini Kerr
10:10 – 10:50 AM | William Kerr – Nationalism and the Global Rise of Authoritarianism
Break
11:00 – 11:40 AM | Susie Orbach – The Seductions and Perils of Authoritarianism
Break
12:00 – 12:40 PM | Barry Richards – Toxic Confusions In and Around Authoritarianism Today
12:40 – 1:10 PM | Small Group Discussion – Rising Authoritarianism and the Implications for Counselling and Psychotherapy
1:10 – 1:30 PM | Final Plenary

This symposium offers a space for critical reflection on the rise of authoritarianism and its implications for therapeutic practice and communities. the role of the therapist and of course, We see our coming together as a political act of engagement in these turbulent times and look forward to your participation in this timely conversation. The symposium is funded by Student Experience Grant

Symposium Convenors: Nini Kerr, Rhea Gandhi, and Jahnavi Dutta
Symposium Anchors: Yaxin Hu (Prof Doc), Beca Sammon (MSc in ICC), Ally Fukada (MSc in CS), Kartika Ladwal (Prof Doc)

If you have any queries regarding registration, please contact Rhea, who is able to advise you: rhea.gandhi@ed.ac.uk

Hope and Despair: Crisis and Opportunity - Annual Conference 2025
2025-06-09 - 2025-06-10 | St. Mary’s University, Twickenham, Waldegrave Road, London, TW1 4SX, United Kingdom

WORLD COMES ALIVE: Virtual Reality and Psychoanalysis
2025-06-19 17:00 - 20:00
World Comes Alive
Experience & discussion of psychoanalytically informed Virtual Reality
Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, London

Thursday 19 June 2025 at 5.00 – 8 pm
(VR experiences by appointment from 3 – 4.30 pm
Book your place here

Event brochure: World Comes Alive Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust Final document-1

APS Conference 2026
2026-06-12 08:00 - 2026-06-13 17:00 | St. Mary’s University, Twickenham, Waldegrave Road, London, TW1 4SX, United Kingdom
