Judy Gammelgård

Judy Gammelgård

Professor emeritus.

Research fields

  • Psychoanalysis: technique and theory.
  • Conceptual research in psychoanalysis
  • Applied Analysis in Literature and art.

Research group memberships

  • Department of Psychology: Center of Psychoanalysis.
  • Department of Psychology. Sexuality, Gender and language.
  • The International Psychoanalytic Association: Psychoanalytic Dictionary/Encyclopedia.
  • Fondation Laplanche

Research: brief description

Judy Gammelgaard is Dr. Phil., Associate professor, psychoanalyst at the Department of Psychology, University of Copenhagen. Her research encompasses clinical psychology and personality psychology with special focus on psychoanalysis, e.g. its theory and methods especially the case-method and the applied method, i.e. the use of psychoanalysis in literature, culture and art. She has developed a theoretical approach to borderline personality disorder, has contributed to conceptual research on the concepts of catharsis, empathy, psychical reality, borderline and the unconscious. In the area of applied analysis she has worked with the poetry of Marcel Proust, James Joyce, Henrik Pontoppidan. In the cinematic field she has explored especially the films of Lars von Trier.

Judy Gammelgaard´s research is currently linked to an international research group appointed by The International Psychoanalytic Association. The aim of this large international group is to prepare a psychoanalytic dictionary/encyclopedia which will define the most important psychoanalytic concepts and at the same time demonstrate the subtle differences that exist among psychoanalytic schools. Further it is the aim of this project also to shed light on the differences in defining these concepts which exist between the three regions chosen, Europe, North America and South America.

Being member of Fondation Laplanche, Judy Gammelgaard takes part in an international group working with the theory developed by the French psychoanalyst Jean Laplanche. She is also member of a newly established Scandinavian group linked to the international group. She has just finished a work on the non-symbolic level of psychical reality illustrated by the theory of Freud, Laplanche and Lacan.

Judy Gammelgaard has recently been appointed by the European Psychoanalytic Foundation to be the leader of an international group working with psychoanalysis and literature based on the EPF quarter in Brussels. 

Current research projects

  • A psychoanalytic theory of the non-symbolic level of psychical reality.
  • The International Dictionary/Encyclopedia of psychoanalysis.
  • Unconscious Phantasies in collaboration with Sølvi Kristiansen Norway.

Teaching

  • Bachelor´s theses
  • Master´s theses
  • Clinical Psychology
  • Personality Psychology
  • The case-method

ID: 3814