OTHER INFORMATION
Before training as a psychoanalyst, I worked in the field of substance addiction. As a senior clinician with The Psychosis Therapy Project, I provide long-term psychotherapy for individuals diagnosed with psychosis living in the community, many of whom are only offered medication as a support.
I also serve on the Council of Ethics for the SSCP.
I have an interest in the arts. My doctoral research explored the intersection of these two practices, psychoanalysis and photography. spencerrowell.uk
Formal Qualifications
2022 Title of Psychoanalyst, Society for Social and Critical Psychoanalysis
2017 PhD Research Degree, An Exploration of Pathography within Phototherapy: An Analysis of the Photographic Self-Portrait
2012 Postgraduate Diploma in Psychodynamic Theory and Practice (Merit), WPF Therapy / Roehampton University
2018 Certificate in Counselling, WPF Therapy / Roehampton University
2010 Master of Arts in Fine Art (Distinction)
Spencer Rowell PhD (born 1958)
Having worked as a photographer from leaving school, self-taught, working class and without any formal training, at the age of 50 attended university began formal studies in psychotherapy (theory & practice) alongside fine art. The combination of these interests began his doctoral research degree titled, An Exploration of Pathography within Phototherapy, An Analysis of the Photographic Self-Portrait (submitted 2017). Pathography representing a form of therapy that can help explore a sense of self through art practice, the experiential nature of art practice – the development and the making of work and its therapeutic possibilities.
I am a founding member of Uncertain States, the artist-led collective which publishes lens-based work in the form of a free quarterly broadsheet, distribued to V&A, Baltic, Ikon, Turner Contemporary and other national galleries. With the support of Arts Council England focuses on the concerns of contemporary photographic practices, helping to develop an extensive community, and opportunities for lens-based artists.
His publication Imago-X is where both literature and the image intersect. Bringing the language of psychoanalytic discourse alongside that of the language of art. In bringing these two creative practices within sight of each other it offers a place of contemplation that considers the art of psychoanalytic practice—its discourse, theories and research—being more alined with that of the artist in-practice, as a form of (re)searching in the making and remaking of the artefact. Contributors to Imago-X are art practitioners. Either in the art of psychoanalytic practice and theory, and other creative writers and practising artists interested in presenting image and creative text .