Psychosocial Studies (PhD / MPhil) - 2013/2014 entry

This programme aims to provide an excellent forum for students to carry out theoretical or applied research in the broad area of psychosocial studies, focusing particularly on innovative interdisciplinary work.

Our staff research interests are in the following areas: social and personal identities and relationships; feminist thought and gender issues (sexualities and culture, minorities and oppression); queer theory; psychoanalytic and social theory; psychotherapeutic studies; psychological and political engagements; applied social psychology; sociology; and post-colonial studies.

For more information, read our programme handbook.

There will be regular classes on Research Methods, the chance to hear presentations from other graduate students on a monthly basis, and a lively postgraduate community attached to the various research institutes at Birkbeck, including the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, Birkbeck Institute for Gender and Sexuality, Birkbeck Institute for Social Research, Centre for Law and the Humanities, and the London Critical Theory Summer School.

• You will be supported by close individual supervision supplemented by research seminars in which all our doctoral students are invited to participate. You will be expected to attend the seminars put on by the Birkbeck Institute for Social Research and additional research seminars run by the department, as well as other Birkbeck events.

• By doctoral thesis submitted at the end of your research.

The Department of Psychosocial Studies has an active and vigorous research culture. This includes regular workshops, many visiting speakers, and numerous collaborative projects both within London, and at national and international levels.

The MPhil/PhD programme provides an excellent forum for students to develop and enhance their specialist, as well as more general transferable, research skills. The programme allows students to gain insight into different research methods and acquire valuable experience both in carrying out large-scale research projects and teaching.

Before you submit an application, please read our advice on how to apply for MPhil/PhD research. 

• Dr Lisa Baraitser, BSc, MA, PhD: Feminist theory, particularly the role of the maternal in social, cultural and psychic life; the ethics of care; theories of gender and sexuality; psychoanalytic and psychosocial theory; theories of event and encounter; feminist perspectives on time, labour, production and reproduction.
• Professor Stephen Frosh, BA, MPhil, PhD: Psychoanalysis, psychotherapy and cultural processes; critical psychology; contemporary identities; psychosocial research methods.
• Viviane Green, BEd, MA: Psychoanalytic understanding of inter-generational trauma, multi perspectives approach in understanding developmental disorders in children and adolescents; clinical application of developmental research.
• Dr Amber Jacobs, BA, MA, PhD: Psychoanalysis – post-Freudian tradition, psychoanalytic feminist theory and feminist philosophy, post-Lacanian theorists; Ancient Greek myth and tragedy (feminist interpretations and political uses of) and contemporary recycling of myth in literature, culture and theory; writing and sexual difference; theories and constructions of the maternal.
• Dr Yasmeen Narayan, BA, MA, PhD: Caribbean creolisation; histories of 'race' and racism; racialisation and post-coloniality; beauty and popular culture; urban cultures and social identities; cultural politics and ethnography.
• Dr Margarita Palacios, PhD: Politics, culture and psychoanalytic theory; social theory and social philosophy; studies on violence and 'otherness'; language, power and knowledge; cultural sociology and social change; Latin America.
• Dr Silvia Posocco, BA, MSc, PhD: Transnational gender and sexuality studies; social anthropology, social theory and cultural analysis; violence and conflict; secrecy; sociality; subjectivity; transnational adoption circuits, documents and archives; ethnography; Latin America.           
• Professor Sasha Roseneil: Analysis of changing relations of gender, sexuality, intimacy and sociability; social theory - particularly feminist, queer, psychoanalytic and psycho-social theory; the study of collective action, social movements, cultural politics and public cultures.
• Professor Lynne Segal, BA, PhD: Gender studies, including feminist scholarship, psychoanalytic dialogue and critical theory, addressing issues of sexual difference, the shifting dynamics of gender, masculinity and its discontents, sexualities and culture, political identifications and cultural belongings.
• Dr Bruna Seu, MA, PhD: Psycho-social inquiry into moral apathy in response to human rights abuses; psychoanalytic and social psychological contributions to the understanding of oppression, race, discrimination, identity and helping behaviour; social constructions of femininity and gender; discourse analysis and social constructionism. 
• Dr Laurence Spurling, BA, PhD: Psychodynamic counselling; the clinical case study; psychotherapy with borderline personality disorders.

• Dr Derek Hook, BA, PhD: Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis; apartheid racism and the post-apartheid South African context; post-colonial theory (with emphasis on the work of Frantz Fanon); the 'psychic life of power'; discourse theory and the work of Michel Foucault; Lacanian clinical practice and social theory.

• Real fathers and Huffy Henrys: searching for the Symbol in Lacan and Berryman
• Mothering and the emergence of hate
• Helping adolescents; a discursive analysis of young adults' talk of prosocial behaviour
• Intimate autonomy: gender as ethical possibility
• Being good at maths: a precarious occupation
• Living with ADHD diagnosis: a disordering of family life
• How are the existing biological relationships with families affected by fostering
• Turkish migrant experiences
• The role of national identification in mental structure.

• You can apply at any time of the year.
• Before you submit an application, please read our advice on how to apply for MPhil/PhD research.