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University of Essex homepage Departments Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies Research Psychoanalysis, Law and Social Phenomena
Research Group

Psychoanalysis, Law and Social Phenomena

A painting of a bowl of cherries, representing law and psychoanalysis.

Creating dialogues between psychoanalytic thought and legal enquiry

Psychoanalysis and law both study the character and meaning of human behaviour.  Both address individual and social phenomena and seek to mediate conflicts arising within human and organisational relationships.

Both concern themselves with the protection and infringement of human dignity and rights, the recovery of memory, and the experience of trauma and processes for recovery and reparations, showing a deep respect for human suffering.

Our research seeks to identify how psychoanalytic theory and practice might be used to critique existing law and legal theories, and how to support legal reform and development. Our work considers how legal understandings and processes may yield new insights into psychoanalytic and psychosocial thinking.

In particular, we aim to highlight contemporary issues on which there is scope for a continuing dialogue between law and psychoanalysis.

Image credit to: Dr Richard Cornes: Bowl of Cherries – Tutorial 7: Human Rights (2021)

Our research

Our research group embraces a wide range of interests. They include the historical development of interactions between law and psychoanalysis in different jurisdictions, the evolution of parallel traditions and thinking, and the arc of common ideation.

We are interested in methodological perspectives applicable in both fields, in respective notions of containment, in the function of memory in both the courts and the consulting room, and in the actors and emotions involved.

We believe a comparison of the processes of reflection applicable in each arena will demonstrate that psychoanalysis has a contribution to make to legal thinking, and that legal values and philosophies may enhance psychoanalytic and psychosocial frameworks.

 

Our members

Members of our group bring legal and psychoanalytic experience to bear on the understanding of legal and psychoanalytic processes, with consideration of both the conscious and unconscious dynamics involved. 

Our group includes members of the Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies (PPS) and of Essex Law School (ELS), as well as individuals from outside of the University of Essex. Please view the profiles of the members below to discover their areas of experience and research. 

We welcome expressions of interest and encourage and support applications for PhD research projects related to the research interests of this group and its members. If you wish to make an enquiry, please email Ann Addison, Chris Tanner, Richard Cornes or Lars Waldorf, founding members of this research group.

Our researchers

Dr Ann Addison

Dr Ann Addison

Researcher and Group Founder

Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex

Margaret Anderson

Researcher

Dr Richard Cornes

Dr Richard Cornes

Researcher and Group Founder

Essex Law School, University of Essex

Dr Monica Luci

Dr Monica Luci

Researcher

Department of Psychosocial and Psychonalytic Studies, University of Essex

Denise Mazzolani

Researcher

Susanne Skoruppa

Susanne Skoruppa

Researcher

Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex & Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust

Chris Tanner

Chris Tanner

Researcher and Group Founder

Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex

Colin Moore

Colin Moore

Researcher

Essex Law School, University of Essex

Lee Marsons

Lee Marsons

Senior Researcher, Public Law Project

Lee is a Senior Researcher at the Public Law Project (PLP), a national legal charity working to advance access to justice, the rule of law and government accountability. His interests include psychoanalytic understandings of organisations, particularly psychodynamic approaches to leadership and the improvement of legal conscientiousness, and what the psychoanalytic profession can learn from lawyers' thinking and approaches.
Professor Lars Waldorf

Professor Lars Waldorf

Group Founder

Researcher, Northumbria Law School

Lars works increasingly on law and emotions, particularly in relation to artivism in Sri Lanka.

Alex Sierck

Reseacher, Licensed Psychoanalyst

Alex Sierck is a licensed psychoanalyst and an internationally certified Jungian analyst in private practice in New York City. He is a member of the International Association of Analytic Psychology and the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis. Prior to his psychoanalytic training, Alex was a civil rights lawyer and public defender for over two decades, representing low-income and systemically-disenfranchised people in the criminal justice system, including those on death-row, in both state and federal court. Alex is a member of the Steering Committee of Analysis and Activism, an international group of psychoanalysts committed to exploring the intersection of psychoanalysis and political activism. He also writes and publishes on the intersection of psychoanalysis and politics, with particular emphasis on the role of transcendence in healing, the relationship between desire, democracy and psychoanalysis, and on the oftentimes complicated nature of freedom and subjectivity.

Visit the host Departments of this interdisciplinary group
Discover more research from the Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies
Discover more research from Essex Law School
The logo for the Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies, a Rorschach inkblot test.
Contact us
PPS Research Group Organisers Dr Ann Addison
ELS Research Group Organisers Dr Richard Cornes
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