Research & Writing
My research and writing explore the relationship between our inner worlds and the social, cultural and relational contexts in which we live. I am particularly interested in sexuality and gender, minority stress, shame, identity, creativity and difference, and in bringing LGBTQ+ affirmative perspectives into dialogue with psychodynamic and group-analytic thinking.
My doctoral research used autoethnography to explore gay minority stress from within lived experience, examining how experiences of stigma, difference and belonging can become part of our internal worlds and shape our relationships with ourselves and others. I am also interested in creativity as a way of expressing, exploring and transforming aspects of experience that may be difficult to articulate in other ways.
My wider interests include neurodiversity and ADHD, group analysis, and the ways personal and creative experience can challenge and enrich established therapeutic theory and practice.
FORTHCOMING
Shame in LGBTQ+ Men: A Group-Analytic and Psychodynamic Perspective
In Clinical Perspectives of Working with Men and Shame, edited by Jeremy Sachs. Forthcoming, 2026.
This chapter explores shame in the lives of LGBTQ+ men through psychodynamic and group-analytic perspectives, considering the relationship between individual experience and the wider social and relational contexts in which shame is formed and sustained.
SELECTED ACADEMIC PUBLICATIONS
Integrating GSRD Therapy – Exploration and Affirmation
In Gender, Sex, and Relationship Diversity Therapy. Routledge, 2025.
This chapter considers the relationship between exploration and affirmation in therapy with gender, sexuality and relationship diversity (GSRD), and how therapists can remain curious about complexity and unconscious meaning while working within an affirming therapeutic framework.
From Sodomites Towards a Gay Sensibility: Embedding Minority Stress in Psychodynamic Practice
British Journal of Psychotherapy, 2025.
This paper brings minority stress theory into dialogue with psychodynamic thinking, exploring how the historical, cultural and social conditions of gay life may become part of the internal world and emerge within the therapeutic relationship.
Exploring Cisgender Therapists’ Attitudes Towards, and Experience of, Working with Trans People in the United Kingdom
Counselling and Psychotherapy Research, 2022.
This research explored cisgender therapists’ attitudes and experiences in therapeutic work with trans people, considering the implications for affirmative, reflective and ethically responsive clinical practice.
Polymorphisms: Sexual and Gender Migrations in Contemporary Psychoanalysis
Psychodynamic Practice, 2026.
A review of Polymorphisms: Sexual and Gender Migrations in Contemporary Psychoanalysis, edited by Leticia Glocer Fiorini, Jean-Marc Tauszik and Silvia Acosta, engaging with contemporary psychoanalytic thinking around sexuality, gender and changing forms of identity.
DOCTORAL RESEARCH
Double Binds: An Autoethnographic Study of Gay Minority Stress
Professional Doctorate in Psychotherapy by Professional Studies, 2024.
My doctoral research used autoethnography to explore the lived and psychological experience of gay minority stress.
Drawing together personal experience, psychotherapy and minority stress theory, the research examines some of the ways in which heteronormativity, stigma and experiences of difference can become internalised — shaping identity, relationships, belonging and our relationship with ourselves.
The research reflects a broader interest that continues through my clinical work and writing: how experiences that may appear deeply personal are also shaped by the groups, cultures and social worlds to which we belong.
COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH
Treatment Preferences of Patients, Caregivers, and Physicians in Follicular Lymphoma: A Global Discrete-Choice Experiment Study
International collaborative research, 2025.
I contributed to an international study exploring how people living with follicular lymphoma, caregivers and physicians understand and value different aspects of treatment.
The research was presented and published across several international haematology and oncology forums, with outputs appearing in Journal of Clinical Oncology, Hematological Oncology and Clinical Lymphoma, Myeloma & Leukemia.
This work reflects a wider interest in the importance of lived experience and patient perspectives within healthcare and research.
SELECTED PROFESSIONAL WRITING
Alongside my academic work, I have written for professional and wider audiences on psychotherapy, LGBTQ+ experience, identity, minority stress, relationships and creativity.
My writing has appeared in publications including Therapy Today, exploring the ways our identities, relationships and wider social worlds shape our emotional lives.
*Earlier publications appear under my previous professional name, Paul C. Mollitt.
