Research

I am a counsellor and psychotherapist with a developing research focus on social sorting, legitimacy, and the psychological consequences of misrecognition and structural invalidation.

My work examines how everyday interactions and institutional practices quietly allocate credibility, voice, and belonging, and how these processes become internalised as shame, chronic self-doubt, voice suppression, and difficulties with identity and agency.

My research sits at the intersection of psychotherapy, social theory, and qualitative methods, with particular interest in:

• social hierarchy and legitimacy allocation

• structural invalidation and epistemic injustice

• recognition and misrecognition in therapeutic and institutional contexts

• racialisation beyond skin colour (including intra-European hierarchies)

• relational psychoanalysis and intersubjectivity

• qualitative, reflexive, and autoethnographic approaches

Current work

MA dissertation (submitted 01/12/205) "inbetweener" An Autoethnographic Exploration of Racism and Identity as an Eastern European Counsellor in the UK

Social sorting, legitimacy, and the internalisation of misrecognition: an autoethnographic and relational analysis

This research develops a qualitative framework for understanding how social hierarchies are reproduced through ordinary interaction and professional institutions, and how these dynamics shape psychological experience over time.

Professional article (in preparation)
An article examining the racialisation of Eastern Europeans in the UK and the implications for clinical practice, currently being prepared for submission to Therapy Today.

Book project (in development)
A non-fiction manuscript expanding this work into a broader social and clinical analysis of social sorting, legitimacy, and structural invalidation across institutions.

Methods

My work draws primarily on qualitative and interpretive approaches, including:

• autoethnography

• narrative and relational analysis

• clinical case reflection

• discourse-informed social analysis

I am particularly interested in methodologies that allow psychological experience to be studied in its social and institutional context rather than in isolation.

Future direction

I am developing plans for doctoral research focusing on the mechanisms through which legitimacy and credibility are socially produced, gated, and protected, and how these processes operate within professional, therapeutic, and institutional environments.

My aim is to develop a more systematic account of how social sorting functions as a relational and structural process, and how it contributes to enduring forms of psychological distress that are often misinterpreted as purely individual.

Research contact

For academic correspondence or research collaboration: erika.vincze@gmail.com