Dr Noreen Giffney

Overview

Life Before Ulster

Dr Noreen Giffney BA Hons, PhD, MSc, Clin Dip, MIFPP, MICP, Founding Scholar BPC is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist and a psychosocial theorist. Before taking up the position of Lecturer in Counselling and Psychotherapy at Ulster University in 2017, she worked at a number of universities in Ireland and the UK, including University College Dublin, Trinity College Dublin, the University of Limerick, and Birkbeck, University of London.

Noreen has worked in the third-level sector since 1997. She specialises in the fields of psychoanalysis; psychosocial studies; the arts, culture and mental health; and gender and sexuality studies. She is a Founding Scholar of the British Psychoanalytic Council (BPC), a member of the Executive Board of the Association for Psychosocial Studies (APS), a member of the International Association for Forensic Psychotherapy (IAPF), and a fully-accredited clinical member of the Irish Forum for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (IFPP) and the Psychoanalytic Section of the Irish Council for Psychotherapy (ICP).

Teaching

Noreen is committed to facilitating students learning from experience through developing their observation and analytical skills and their capacity for self-awareness, self-reflectivity and insight. She has a particular interest in reflective practice.

Noreen specialises in teaching psychoanalytic and psychosocial theories with the use of cultural objects (film, art, literature, music, virtual reality) as case studies. She formulated and developed the “Cultural Encounters Case Study Method”, which brings together clinical concepts and cultural objects as creative sites for playing with ideas through encounter and experience. In opening up spaces for thinking and feeling, the Method provides opportunities to work towards integrating theoretical knowledge with capacities and skills required for clinical practice.

Noreen welcomes enquiries from prospective PhD students and postdoctoral fellows interested in undertaking theoretical, qualitative, and/or clinical research in one of the following fields: psychoanalysis; psychosocial studies; the arts, culture and mental health; gender and sexuality studies.

Noreen has performed External Examiner duties at the University of Edinburgh, the London School of Economics, the University of Roehampton, the University of Essex, and Birkbeck, University of London.

Research

Noreen’s research is situated at the intersection between the arts and culture and mental health. Her work focuses more specifically on bringing together 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 clinical practitioners inside and outside the consulting room. She is the author of the book, “The Culture-Breast in Psychoanalysis: Cultural Experiences and the Clinic” (Routledge 2021).

Noreen is also interested in the impact of psychosocial factors on the unconscious dynamics – transference and countertransference – underpinning the analytic relationship. She is the co-editor of “Clinical Encounters in Sexuality: Psychoanalytic Practice and Queer Theory” (2017).

She has published many peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, co-edited a further five books on feminist and queer theories of gender and sexuality, and held editing positions with international publishers: Contributing Editor, “Studies in Gender & Sexuality” (Routledge); Series Co-Editor, “Queer Interventions” book series (Ashgate); and Humanities Book Review Editor, “GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian & Gay Studies” (Duke University Press). She is a member of the editorial team of “New Associations” magazine, which is published by the British Psychoanalytic Council and makes use of psychoanalytic thinking to reflect on social, cultural and political issues.

Civic Roles

Noreen is the Director of “Psychoanalysis +” (2013- ), an international, interdisciplinary initiative that brings together clinical, academic and artistic approaches to, and applications of, psychoanalysis. Large public events have taken place in the National Museum of Decorative Arts and History, Science Gallery Dublin, Filmbase, IMMA – The Irish Museum of Modern Art, the Freud Museum in London, and the Birkbeck Centre for Contemporary Theatre.

Noreen has been a member of a number of clinical committees, including the Education Sub-Committee, the Trauma Working Group, and (as Chair) the Accreditation Review Working Group in the Irish Forum for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy.

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 of sexuality and gender to Ireland. She currently convenes the international, interdisciplinary “Psychoanalysis and the Psychosocial Discussion Group”.

Further information about Noreen’s work

• Psychoanalysis and Art (IMMA – The Irish Museum of Modern Art)
• Psychoanalysis and Culture (New Books in Psychoanalysis Book Series)
• The Psychology of Horror (Museum of Literature Podcast)
• Psychoanalysis and Sexuality (Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Now Public Lecture)
• Psychoanalysis in Ireland
• Psychoanalysis and Research
• Psychoanalysis in Ireland within a Global Perspective (“Psychoanalytic Perspectives”)