Main menu
Staff & students

Dr Eric Harper

Staff details

Dr Eric Harper

Position

Convenor and Lecturer

Department

Social, Therapeutic and Community Studies

Email

E.Harper (@gold.ac.uk)

Psychoanalysis at the margins (Schizo-analysis, Intersectionality, Eco-Therapy, Activism, Moveable Frames, Dreams).

Co-Convenor of the MA Psychodynamic Counselling & Psychotherapy.

Oversee Admissions.

Research.

Academic qualifications

  • PHD. Thesis on violence and homelessness: Freud, Fanon and Foucault. Faculty of Women and Gender Sciences, University of Western Cape 2012
  • Reflective Practice in Organizations: Institute of Group Analysis. Diploma. 2019
  • Senior Leadership and Management. Meridian (Common Purpose). Certificate 2009
  • Masters in Psychoanalytic Studies. Middlesex University 1996
  • Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist. Centre for Freudian Analysis & Research. 1995
  • Supervision: An Integrative Approach. Metanoia Therapy training institute. London. UK. Grade: Distinction. Certificate. 1992
  • B. Soc. Sc. (Social Work - Case, Group and Community, Development work). University of Cape Town 1991
  • B. Soc. Sc. Clinical Psychology – Honors. Rhodes University 1984
  • B. Soc. Sc. Psychology and Anthropology. Rhodes University 1983

Teaching and supervision

Co-convenor of the MA Psychodynamic Counselling and Psychotherapy.

Module Convenor of Reflective Practitioner, Psychodynamic Theories and Competencies and Skills.

  • Module Convenor of Reflective Practitioner
  • Module Convenor Psychodynamic Theories
  • Lecture in Advanced Theory
  • Lecture in Applied Psychoanalysis
  • Clinical Case Management
  • Supervise MA Dissertations
  • Co Supervise PhD Research
  • Facilitation of Experientials (Reflective Practice)
  • Module Convenor Competencies and Skills

Research interests

I am committed to working and understanding the experience of marginalised individuals, groups and communities who find it difficult to knock at our doors and ask for help due to being frightened off by the way in which psychoanalysis is conducted.

What are the edges of psychoanalysis (Schizo-analysis, Intersectionality, Eco-Therapy, Activism, Moveable Frames, Dreams).

What are contemporary symptom and how do we work with addiction, so-called psychosis, and questions of white privilege, racism, and class barriers?

Who are the marginalised voices in psychoanalysis – Fanon, Deleuze, Guattari, Hillman and Maria Langer and other South American Marxist psychoanalysis?

How do we re-thinking classic analytic texts, such as Mourning and Melancholia through other frameworks (like Afro pessimism, Queer and Post-Colonial Theories and feminism ), for example, Christina Sharpe’s In The Wake? Can we include Alexis Pauline Gumbs and Audre Lorde in our thinking on Eco Therapy?

Placing Bion's work alongside Deleuze, Guattari and Fanon.

African Philosophy.

Featured publications

2017: The Production of an Anxiety Dream Space Machine. Harper, E and Mwaniki, C in Schizoanalysis and Ecosophy. Edited by Constantin Bounds Bloomsbury

2024: Psychoanalysis in the Time of the last breath. Harper and Lee. Sitegiest A Journal of Psychoanalysis and Philosophy

2013: Human rights abuses and collective resilience among sex workers in four African countries: a qualitative study Scorgie, F, Vasey, F, Harper, E, et la

2003: Torture ­ a presence without Absence. Harper, E. The Symptom ­ Online Journal for Lacan.com. Issue 4

1999: Psychoanalysis on the Streets. Harper, E. Publication by Psycho-analytic Psychotherapy in South Africa. Vol. 7 No 1

Grants and awards

1998: Facilitate outreach project-providing therapy on the streets to the homeless in London which work won the Sainsbury award.
Therapy to street homeless.

1990: Best Play Leader and Hard Worker Award.
Recreation Play Program with children involved in gang activity and violence through the creation of recreation programs in impoverished ghetto areas

Professional projects

Established a therapy service for the homeless and oversee the implantation of reflective practice within SHP. 2018-2020

Site of Contemporary Psychoanalysis - Trainer and Supervisor
● Training Committee
● Training and group supervision of trainee therapists

Initiated and established a Sex Worker lead African sex worker alliance in 9 countries and expanded community partnership work in 5 provinces in SA. Included the first-time sex workers marched demanding health and human rights –in Kenya, Zimbabwe, Nigeria and SA. 2007-2011

Oversaw a research project that looked at the vulnerable young people at risk of sexual exploitation and involved in survival sex in Kenya, Nigeria, Namibia, and Mozambique. It was presented at ICASA in the form of a drama by the young people who were trained to collect the data. 2011.

Oversaw a project offering one to one and group therapy and community outreach work to ex-political prisoners and refugees in SA. Involved bridging activities, political lobbying, a story telling group and creation of a monthly newsletter. The work was an integration of applied psychoanalysis and African psychology. Supported services users to establish their own organization and make a documentary of their experience. Also assisted with crisis intervention for people affected by violence, for example bomb blasts, hijackings, etc. 1998 to 2001

Facilitate outreach project-providing therapy on the streets to the homeless in London. 1994- 1998

Research projects

2017-2020: The Freudian Space Ship. Breath, Body, Earth. Eric Harper and Matt Lee.
In the first part of this project we look at overlapping moments in which the wretched of the earth and wretched earth cannot breath.

Media engagements

2010: Sex Worker Rights
TV and Radio interviews in South whilst director of SWEAT

Conferences and talks

2021: I cannot Breathe. Eric Harper, Matt Lee, Tammy Shefer, Sunny Tsai
White Privilege, Racism and Psychoanalysis. Goldsmiths and Site for Contemporary Psychoanalysis Conference

2021: Swimming Oceanic Bodies. Eric Harper, Tammy Shefer, Sunny Tsai
Deleuze and Guattari studies conference

2019: Rooting in Sea: Pre-individual Bodies of Thought in Deleuze, Guattari, Fanon and Glissant
Paper by Eric Harper, Matt Lee, and Sunny Tsai for PEDAGOGIES IN THE WILD Conference.

2019: Dream spaces
The Reverse Side: Guattari, Deleuze, and Institutional Thought Conference.

2018: Analyzing the Collective Equipment involved in supporting people with complex needs. Faramelli and Harper
Schizoanalysis, Now! Modalities, mutations, and values

2018: Ecology and Psychoanalysis. Eric Harper and Matt Lee
Post-Psychoanalysis, Political, and Philosophical Perspectives on Contemporary Psychoanalysis and its Institutions - Site of Contemporary

2017: Austerity and Addiction (AA). Eric Harper
London Conference in Critical Thought

2016: Fanon and Laing. Eric Harper and Andie Newman
London Conference in Critical Thought

2015: The history of intuitional psychotherapy in France – discussion with Valentine Schaepelynck.
A2Z Guattari Conference

2015: Framed by conflict – Laing, Lacan and Deleuze. Eric Harper and Andie Newman
Conflict in Psychoanalysis. Site of Contemporary Psychoanalysis Conference

2015: The Production of an Anxiety Dream machine. Eric Harper and Njoki Mwaniki
Deleuze and Guattari Refrains of Freedom Conference

2015: Foucault: Home and Homelessness. Eric Harper and Njoki Mwaniki
Critical Spaces Conference. Kingston University

2014: Dream and Dream Space. Eric Harper and Njoki Mwaniki
7th International Deleuze Studies Conference: ‘Models, Machines and Memories

2013: The therapist’s relationship to the unknown: Panel discussion with Dr Paul Ashton, Dr Steven Bloch and Dr Eric Harper
South African Jungian Institute

2011: Male Sex Work in Africa ICASA. Eric Harper
ICASA. Ethiopia.

2009: Community engagement with hard-to-reach clients. Eric Harper
UNFPA – SAHARA Research Conference - Contribution to the Policy Dialogue and Community Engagement Johannesburg

2009: Opening address.
African Sex Worker Conference. Johannesburg

2007: What if Fanon read Biko? Eric Harper
International Conference on Steven Biko, Cape Town

2005: Working with homeless people with multiple needs. Eric Harper
National Homeless-Link conference, Nottingham

2004: Working with diversity through partnerships. Eric Harper
Camden Council and New Roots Conference on Dependency Issues facing Black and Ethnic minorities, Camden

2002: On working with women exposed to both torture and domestic violence. Eric Harper
Third Wave Feminism International Conference, Exeter

2001: Community approach with asylum seekers. Amber Gray and Eric Harper
The International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, New Orleans

2001: Bridging activities in working with torture survivors. Eric Harper
Making a Difference Conference, Physicians concerned about human rights, Stanford University

2000: Tortured Bodies. Eric Harper
Who Owns The Body? International Conference organized by Berkeley University

1999: Witnessing the silent cry of the body. Eric Harper
The viii International Symposium on Torture, Deli

1998: Community Work with political prisoners. Eric Harper
The 5th International Conference for Health and Human Rights, Cape Town.

1997: Applied psychoanalysis with the street homeless. Eric Harper
The Centre for Freudian Analysis symposium

1997: Psychosis: a case study. Eric Harper
The Centre for Freudian Analysis symposium on psychosis.

1987: Working with so-called disturbed children. Anne Barnds and Eric Harper
The National Child Care Association, Annual Conference, Cape Town

Voluntary work

1990 to 1992
● Community development, community mobilization, advocacy, and the production of a monthly newsletter for African National Congress (ANC).
● Member of the Communist Party

1992
HIV human rights activism
Act-Up, Cape Town

1990 to 1991
National Child Care Association and NICRO – Trainer
● Facilitated a skills training course on child sexual abuse for the and ran safer sex workshops for street kids in Cape Town. Date.

1983: Student: My first exercise of working with the homeless. Pitched a tent outside my student accommodation for two street children and got one into school