Dr Maria Luca
Reader in Psychotherapy & Counselling Psychology and Senior
Research Fellow
Department
School of Psychotherapy & Counselling
Psychology
Faculty
HASS (Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences)
Professional affiliation(s)
- UKCP Accredited Psychotherapist
- BACP Accredited Counsellor Supervisor
- MBACP Accredited Senior Accredited Counsellor
Supervisor
- Member of the Society for Psychotherapy Research
Qualifications
- BA (Hons)
- MA Psychotherapy
- PhD
- Accredited Mediator
Biography
Maria’s major administrative role is as coordinator of the
Doctorate in Counselling Psychology and as the Head of SPCP
Research Centre 'Reflections'. She is also a member of the
Counselling Psychology Programme Committee and member of the Senate
and Faculty Research Committees.
Her previous administrative roles include Head of the School of
Psychotherapy and Counselling Psychology and Programme Director of
the MA in Psychotherapy and Counselling. Among other duties,
Maria’s administrative responsibilities included design and
preparation of validation and accreditation documents, involvement
in validation events, budgetary responsibility, line management of
programme directors and staff at the Inner Circle Therapy
centre.
She was between 2009 and 2011 the School coordinator for the
Grundtvig European migrant counselling, guidance and support
project, involving researching the lived experience of migrants.
She chaired the research sub-group of this project.
Course Development
Maria’s teaching roles have included the design and production
of an MA in psychotherapy and counselling module on the therapeutic
relationship and frame, teaching and assessing experiential and
video work on the Counselling Psychology Doctorate, assessment and
psychological formulation modules on both programmes, a module on
sexual dynamics in psychotherapy work, on ethics and boundaries and
qualitative research methods, particularly Grounded Theory.
Other course development work includes, for a City University
Higher Education department, developing a module on existential
facilitation styles and group dynamics.
PhD and Doctoral Research Supervision and
Examining
Maria currently supervises 9 Doctoral level
students in Counselling Psychology; 3 PhD students in psychotherapy
studies. She is internal and external examiner (and has examined)
theses for the Doctorate theses.
Research Interests
Broadly speaking Maria’s research interests concern
(1) Psychotherapists and counselling psychologists
conceptualisations and therapeutic activities with medically
unexplained symptoms (MUS). One strand of research explores
practitioners’ conceptualisations and constructed meanings of MUS
and therapeutic activities and interventions they adopt to work
with this group of clients. The second strand addresses
issues concerned with the migrant lived experience of guidance and
support for employment and social integration.
(2) Migrant’s lived experience and inter-cultural therapy.
(3) Embodiment, bracketing and reflexivity in Grounded theory
and in Phenomenological methods.
One strand of research explores practitioners’
conceptualisations and constructed meanings of MUS and therapeutic
activities and interventions they adopt to work with this group of
clients. The second strand addresses issues concerned with
the migrant lived experience of guidance and support for employment
and social integration.
The last strand explores principles of qualitative research from
an inter-subjective perspective, taking into consideration the
agency of research participants in the construction of
meaning.
(4) Sexual dynamics and attraction in therapy relationships,
looking at erotic and erotised transference and countertransference
and management of sexual attraction.
Maria’s international research collaborations include: The
Vienna Freud University; The Grundtvig European Partners project
for migrant guidance, counselling and support and a number of UK
collaborations with psychotherapy providers and universities.
Maria is particularly interested in supervising doctoral
students wishing to conduct research in psychotherapy and
counselling psychology practitioner experience, on sexualities from
a psychotherapy and counselling psychology perspective and who wish
to employ grounded theory and/or phenomenological methodsologies in
their work.
She is also interested in examining Doctorate theses in
psychotherapy and counselling psychology.
Accreditation with professional
bodies
A United Kingdom for Psychotherapy accredited integrative
psychotherapist, a British Association of Counselling and
Psychotherapy senior accredited counsellor supervisor.
List of Publications
Chapter in Book:
- Luca, M. (2009) ‘A Therapist’s Portrait of a Clinical Encounter
with a Somatizer’. Chapter. In Relational Centred Research for
Psychotherapists: Exploring Meanings and Experience. Editors: Linda
Finlay and Ken Evans. London: Blackwells.
Books
Editor and Author:
- Luca, M. (2004) ‘The Therapeutic Frame in the Clinical Context
– Integrative Perspectives’ London:
Brunner-Routledge.
Journals
- Luca, M. (2011) Therapeutic activities and psychological
interventions by CBT and psychodynamic therapists working with
medically unexplained symptoms: A qualitative study. In Counselling
and Psychotherapy Research Journal (BACP), Published by
Routledge
- Luca, M. (2010) A qualitative study of psychodynamic and
cognitive behavioural therapists’ conceptualizations of medically
unexplained symptoms in their clients. In Counselling and
Psychotherapy Research. Accepted for publication.
- Luca, M. (2009) Embodied Research and Grounded Theory.
University of
Wales:UK.http://www.wales.ac.uk/en/featuredcontent/articles/
- staffarticles/EmbodiedResearchandGroundedTheory.aspx
- Luca, M. (2003) ‘Containment of the Sexualized and Erotized
Transference’, In Journal Of Clinical Psychoanalysis, Vol. 11 No. 4
Fall 2002. International Universities Press.
- Luca-Stolkin, M. (2000) ‘Surviving Terror in the Clinical
Encounter’. In The Psychotherapy Review, Vol. 2 (11).
- Luca-Stolkin, M. (2000) ‘The Unsayable in Hysteria’. In The
Psychotherapy Review, Vol. 2 (2).
- Luca-Stolkin, M. (1999) ‘Pandora’s Box: The shadow of
femininity in the treatment of psycho-somatic distress’ In
Psychodynamic Counselling, 5.2, London: Routledge.
Page last updated 05/08/2011
Page last updated 11/3/2011