Dr Lizaveta van Munsteren is a clinician and academic specialising in psychoanalysis, psychosocial theory, and the cultural–historical dimensions of mental health. She joined King’s College London as a Lecturer in Psychotherapy in August 2025.

She studied medicine in Belarus and clinical psychology in Russia, before completing an MA and PhD in Psychosocial Studies at Birkbeck, University of London. She also holds a psychodynamic psychotherapy qualification from the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. She is a Chartered Psychologist of the British Psychological Society and a registered member of the British Psychoanalytic Council.

Lizaveta has taught across undergraduate, postgraduate, and professional clinical training programmes in Saint-Petersburg, Russia and the UK at Birkbeck, University of London, UCL, the British Psychotherapy Foundation, and the John Bowlby Centre. She has worked as a clinical psychologist and psychodynamic psychotherapist with adults and groups across private and institutional settings. Her clinical work encompasses long-term and time-limited psychodynamic psychotherapy, trauma-oriented therapeutic practice, and culturally informed approaches to assessment and treatment.

Lizaveta's research links psychoanalytic theory, psychosocial studies, and critical history. Her PhD focused on the political, institutional, and theoretical transformations of psychoanalysis in the Soviet Union, examining its survival and adaptation under ideological pressures. Her early research was conducted at the St. Petersburg V.M. Bekhterev Psychoneurological Research Institute, where she completed a postgraduate course in medical psychology with clinical placement. She worked as a clinical psychologist across hospital departments, conducting psychoanalytic research on self-image in acute depression, schizophrenia, and neuroses, while providing support groups, diagnostic interviews, and therapeutic counselling.

She is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher on the FREEPSY Project (University of Essex), conducting archival and historical research of psychoanalytic free clinics. Her project contributes to the strands Progressive Clinical Cultures and Contemporary Practices and Legacies of the Free Clinics. Lizaveta is a co-editor of the volume Michael Balint for Our Times: The London Years (Routledge), together with Raluca Soreanu and Judit Szekacs, as well as co-editor of the Important Little Book in Psychoanalysis series with 1968 Press.

Her monograph The Vicissitudes of Psychoanalysis in Soviet Russia, 1930–1980 was recently published with Routledge (2025), and she has published papers in Psychoanalysis and History, Journal of Psychosocial Studies, and other international journals.

Research Interests

• Psychoanalytic theory and metapsychology
• Cultural and social history of mental health and psychoanalysis
• Archival research, language, and the unconscious in historical and political contexts

Lizaveta's current research combines an innovative approach to psychoanalytic archives with critical historical analysis and psychosocial studies. She has expertise in psychoanalytic theory, with a special focus on the metapsychology of Freud and the works of Melanie Klein, Didier Anzieu, Jean Laplanche, and Wilfred Bion. She also supports projects exploring the interdisciplinary connections between psychoanalysis, physiology, and general medicine in particular.

Teaching

Foundations in Clinical Psychotherapy

Key Publications

The Vicissitudes of Psychoanalysis in the Soviet Russia, 1930-1950 (2025) Routledgehttps://www.routledge.com/The-Vicissitudes-of-Psychoanalysis-in-Soviet-Russia-1930-1980/vanMunsteren/p/book/9781032845937 

van Munsteren, L. (2025). Bluma Zeigarnik: um nome ausente na história da psicanálise na Rússia Soviética? Lugar Comum. 71, 127-167.

van Munsteren, Lizaveta (2023) ‘Bluma Zeigarnik: A Missing Name in the History of Psychoanalysis in Soviet Russia?’Psychoanalysis and History, 25 (1), 31-58 https://doi.org/10.3366/pah.2023.0451 

Fielder, Tom; van Munsteren, Lizaveta (2021) Reanimating the Plague. Journal of Psychosocial Studies https://doi.org/10.1332/147867321X16285375806758