Scholars’ Network Spotlight: Esther Ramsay-Jones
Esther Ramsay-Jones is a lecturer Birkbeck Centre for Counselling, and an Organisational Psychodynamic Therapist.
Esther’s research interests are particularly linked to the application of psychoanalytic understanding to the experience of those living and working in dementia and end-of-life care settings; increasingly with a focus on the subjectivity of the professional carer in relation to the cared-for. Esther is currently involved in a multidisciplinary research project on relational care for older people research project through OU, and has had recent involvement in a Knowledge Transfer project with the university and End of Life Doula UK: Open Research Online.
Her recent publications include a chapter in Men and Loss: New Perspectives on Bereavement edited by Kerry Jones and Martin Robb (Routledge, July 2024). Esther’s piece was entitled: ‘Land of our fathers: an exploration of the son’s grief’.
Esther also recently contributed to a book chapter in ‘Understanding the Grief and Loss Experiences of Carers: Research, Practitioner and Personal Perspectives’. The chapter ‘The grief of care partners of people living and dying with dementia: A psychodynamic perspective’ was written as part of a collaborative project (Phil McEvoy et al., 2024), using a psychoanalytically informed reflective practice approach to understand the grieving experience of family carers of people with dementia.
Esther’s PhD was an ethnographic study much of which was brought together in Holding Time: Human Need and Relationships in Dementia Care (Free Association Books, 2019).
