Clive Thomson, Phd, RP, Psychoanalyst

Biography

In 2008, I accepted the position of Director of the School of Languages and Literatures at the University of Guelph. I retired from the University of Guelph in 2022 and was granted ‘University Professor Emeritus’ status. My interest in psychoanalysis evolved over many years and reached a turning point in 1997 when I decided to engage in clinical work and intensive training. I completed my psychoanalytic training at the Toronto Institute for Contemporary Psychoanalysis (TICP) in 2005 and I worked with patients in private practice until 2016.

Clinical Work

The following institutional settings provided me with valuable clinical experience during and following my training period: the Psychotherapy Assessment Clinic at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto (CAMH); the Psychological Services Office (student clinic), University of Western Ontario; the London Psychiatric Hospital.

My clinical work with patients in which I used a psychoanalytic and psychodynamic approach was focused on a wide variety of issues: relationship difficulties, depression, anxiety and panic, self-esteem, chronic pain, sexual identity and sexual orientation, obsessions. My current work as supervisor of psychotherapy students in training focuses on these same issues.

Teaching

From 2005 to 2008, I was cross appointed as professor to the Department of Psychiatry, Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Western Ontario, where I taught seminars on psychoanalytic technique for psychiatry residents and provided supervision for residents who were undertaking their first psychotherapy cases. I also taught courses for MA and PhD students on the history and theory of psychoanalysis in the Centre for the Study of Theory and Criticism and in the Department of French at the University of Western Ontario. Between 2007 to 2019, I co-taught several extension courses on the work of Jacques Lacan at the Toronto Institute for Psychoanalysis. Since 2015, I have been teaching courses and supervising students at the Toronto Institute for Contemporary Psychoanalysis.

Research

My publications and conference papers in the field of psychoanalysis have dealt with the theories of Jacques Lacan and Julia Kristeva, psychoanalysis and democracy, Michel Foucault’s attitude toward psychoanalysis, and the philosophy of dialogism and psychoanalysis. I have also published extensively on topics related to the history of homosexuality in 19th-century France. A selection of my articles in which I report on my clinical work is available at www.lacantoronto.ca.

Associations

I am a member of the following associations:

  • College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario (CRPO)
  • Ontario Association of Consultants, Counsellors, Psychometrists and Psychotherapists (OACCPP)
  • Canadian Association of Psychodynamic Psychotherapists (CAPT)
  • Lacan Toronto
  • the Association of the 0rdre des Palmes Académiques (France)