Research Interests and Focus
Each member of the Counselling & Health Communication Team is actively engaged in undertaking and publishing research. Our research has been funded by a number of agencies. Members are also involved in reviewing research for international publishers, publications and funding bodies. Our research focuses on counselling, health communication, psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, psychosocial studies, mental health, ethics, and working in healthcare settings. The Team has expertise in theoretical, qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods approaches to academic and clinical research.
Dr Paula Brogan
Research Interests
Research Focus
Dr Noreen Giffney
Research Interests
Psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, mental health, psychosocial studies, visual culture, theoretical research.
Research Focus
Noreen's research engages with clinical psychoanalysis and the field of psychosocial studies to explore the central importance played by cultural objects in the unconscious lives of patients and psychoanalytic psychotherapists inside and outside the consulting room. She brings together her clinical training and practice in psychoanalytic psychotherapy and her academic training in the arts and humanities in her work. She is completing a sole-authored book entitled The Culture-Breast: Cultural Experiences and the Psychoanalytic Clinic, which is contracted to be published by Routledge. She is also interested in the unconscious dynamics - transference and countertransference - underpinning the therapeutic relationship. Her most recent book is Clinical Encounters in Sexuality: Psychoanalytic Practice and Queer Theory (New York: Punctum Books 2017), which she co-edited with Dr Eve Watson. She has co-edited a further five books on feminist and queer theories of gender and sexuality, and has held a number of editing positions: Contributing Editor, Studies in Gender and Sexuality (Routledge); Series Co-Editor, Queer Interventions book series (Ashgate); and Humanities Book Review Editor, GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies (Duke University Press).
Noreen is the Director of 'Psychoanalysis +', an international, interdisciplinary initiative that brings together clinical, academic and artistic approaches to, and applications of, psychoanalysis. Large public events have taken place in, for example, the Freud Museum in London, the National Museum of Decorative Arts and History, Science Gallery Dublin, Filmbase, and IMMA - The Irish Museum of Modern Art. She was commissioned by IMMA to develop Unconscious Objects: A Series of Conversations around Art & Psychoanalysis, which she facilitated with Dr Lisa Moran, Curator of Engagement and Learning. Noreen is also the Director (with Dr Maggie Long and Dr Jolene Mairs Dyer) of 'Mental Health & the Arts', an interdisciplinary, cross-border initiative that convenes public events on psychosocial issues in cultural institutions in partnership with community groups/organisations. Noreen was the convener (with Michael O'Rourke) of 'The(e)ories: Critical Theory & Sexuality Studies' (2002-2013), which brought many of the world's most eminent theorists on feminism, queer theory, gender and sexuality studies to Ireland.
Noreen has given over 70 invited talks and conference contributions on her research at academic, clinical and public events. These talks have been delivered in, for example, Texas, Dublin, Oxford, Belfast, Brussels, London, Amsterdam, Cambridge, Manchester, Vienna, Leeds, Chicago, Newcastle and Manitoba. Noreen was invited to become a founding scholar of the British Psychoanalytic Council (BPC) in 2019, in recognition of the contribution of her research to the study of psychoanalysis.