My research

Research & publications

My research is primarily addressing the neglect and marginalisation of class in in the field of psychoanalysis and child welfare work, specifically adoption.  As a visiting research fellow at the University of West of England I undertook two research projects:

Psychoanalysis and working-class experience.

Class in the formation of parenting and identity in adoptive family life

These produced the following publications and a forthcoming book:

Identity through Injury: Contemporary adoption and the unfit working-class mother in Marcheska, E (ed) Maternal in creative work: Intergenerational discussions on motherhood and art, London: Routledge

Damaged Attachments & Family Dislocations: The operation of class in adoptive family life in Genealogy 2018, 2, 55

Psychoanalysis and working-class experience (forthcoming) London: Routledge

Alongside my research, I have a long-standing practice involvement in the field of adoption. I worked at the Post Adoption Centre in London for over 10 years, where I set up the first adoption mediation service in the UK.  I continue to offer free-lance training and consultancy to local authorities on adoption related issues: attachment and open adoption; identity and contact; using mediation in open adoption work; working with contemporary birthmothers. I am always interested in working therapeutically with people whose lives have been touched by or formed through adoption.

Palgrave McMillan published my book on open adoption in their series Family & Intimate Life

Adoption, Family and the Paradox of Origins: A Foucauldian history (2012)