Dr Marita Vyrgioti

Biography

I am a Lecturer in the Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies, where I am also the Director of the BA in Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies. I am a psychosocial theorist interested in the relationship between psychoanalysis and colonialism from both historical and epistemological perspectives. In my latest article 'A child is being eaten: Psychoanalysis in times of anti-blackness' (December, 2023), I investigated how the work of the psychoanalyst and anthropologist Géza Róheim can help us explore how socio-political conditions of colonial power shape the human, embodied mind, and our understanding of it. More recently, and in collaboration with Dr Emilia Halton-Hernandez I am developing a psychosocial research project that integrates social theory and psychoanalysis to explore ‘tweakments’ (minimally invasive, cosmetic procedures) and the role of the skin in psychic development. I have a long-standing interest in the mind-body relationship, particularly in relation to conditions of power, liminal states of mind and ‘zones of non-being’. Theoretically, my work draws on the work of Sigmund Freud, Melanie Klein, and the British Object Relations tradition, as well the work of Frantz Fanon and Afropessimism scholars. Alongside Professor Stephen Frosh and Dr Julie Walsh, I co-edited the first Handbook of Psychosocial Studies, which was published by Palgrave in 2024. This is a capacious work which offers the first comprehensive treatment of the transdisciplinary field of psychosocial studies. I am a trainee psychodynamic psychotherapist, at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust.

Qualifications

• PhD in Psychosocial Studies Birkbeck College, University of London,

• MA in Foundations of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust/University of Essex,