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Dr Parisa Dashtipour

Profile summary

  • Central Academic Staff
  • Lecturer in Psychology
  • Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences
  • School of Psychology & Counselling
  • Psychology
  • parisa.dashtipour

Professional biography

I joined The Open University in September 2022. Prior to joining, I worked as Senior Lecturer in Organizational Psychology at Middlesex University. I have also previously taught psychology at the School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University. I completed my PhD in Social Psychology at the London School of Economics.

My work is situated at the intersection of critical psychology/psychosocial studies, organizational psychology and organization studies.  

I have a long-standing interest in psychosocial studies and its application, beginning with my PhD which was an exploration of resistance to racism in Swedish media discourse, and continuing with my book Social Identity in Question (Routledge, 2012), which reworks social identity theory from a Lacanian psychoanalytic perspective. In recent years, I have adopted a broadly critical/psychosocial approach to investigate work and subjectivity.

Research interests

The overarching question that connects the different aspects of my work and which continues to interest me is how subjectivity is formed and injured within social relations of power (such as racism, capitalism and patriarchy). I have applied this question to investigate how work and organizational life may foster and/or harm subjectivity. 

These themes connect to critical approaches to mental health, especially in relation to work. For instance, I have drawn on Christophe Dejours’ ‘psychodynamics of work’ that emphasizes how mental health problems may develop because of work experiences and not just due to biographical and family history (as it is commonly assumed in psychoanalytic theory). I am interested in alternative, critical, and psychosocial approaches to workplace distress and treatment specifically, as well as to work and organizational psychology more generally.

 

Selected publications

Published peer-reviewed journal articles

Dashtipour, P. Frost, N., and Traynor, M. (2020) The idealization of ‘compassion’ in trainee nurses’ talk: A psychosocial focus group study. Human Relations, 74(12): 2102-2125.

Dashtipour, P. and Vidaillet, B. (2020) Introducing the French psychodynamic approach to critical management education: Why do the work task and the organization of work matter? Academy of Management Learning and Education, 19(2): 131-146.

Dashtipour, P. and Rumens, N. (2018) Entrepreneurship, incongruence and affect: Drawing insights from a Swedish anti-racist organization. Organization. 25(2): 223-241.

Dashtipour, P and Vidaillet, B. (2017) Work as affective experience: The contribution of Christophe Dejours’ ‘psychodynamics of work’. Organization, 24(1), 18-35.

Andreouli, E. and Dashtipour, P. (2014). British citizenship and the ‘other’: an analysis of the earned citizenship discourse. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 24(2): 100-110.

Dashtipour, P. (2009) Contested identities: Using Lacanian psychoanalysis to explore and develop social identity theory. Annual Review of Critical Psychology, 7, 320-337.

 

Authored book

Dashtipour, P. (2012) Social identity in question: construction, subjectivity and critique. London: Routledge.

 

Chapters in edited books

Dashtipour, P. Fotaki, M. and Vidaillet, B. (2020) The dark side of work in organizations: The lived experience of suffering at work. In M. Fotaki, G. Islam & A. Antoni (eds.) Business Ethics and Care in Organizations. London: Routledge.

Dashtipour, P. (2015) Social psychology: a commentary on organizational research. In Parker, I. (ed) Handbook of Critical Psychology. London: Routledge.

Dashtipour, P. (2014) Freedom through work: The psychosocial, affect and work. In Kenny, K. and Fotaki, M. (eds) The psychosocial in organization studies: Affect at work. London: Palgrave MacMillan.

Hook, D., Dashtipour, P. and Hewitson, O. (2013) Resistance in the psychotherapeutic. In Bauer, M.W., Harré, R. and Jensen, C. (eds.) Beyond rationality: Resistance and the practice of rationality. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.