Founded in 1993, the Centre for Psychoanalytic Studies at Essex is internationally recognised as one of the leading centres for work that focuses on the role of the unconscious mind in mental health as well as in culture and society generally. Its work is deeply grounded on knowledge deriving from clinical practice, to which the highest standards of academic thinking are then applied. The Centre enjoys an outstanding reputation for research and has consistently achieved the highest rating in the UK's Research Assessment Exercises, most recently in 2008. It is also distinctive in its provision of a pluralistic and non-sectarian environment in which various depth psychological models of the unconscious (especially Freudian, Jungian, and British Object Relations) are critically examined. Centre programmes make use of experiential components and clinically-oriented teaching. Many members of staff are clinicians as well as scholars. And strong links are maintained with the local NHS and other services, institutions, and centres of excellence.

The Centre shares in the international character of the University. At any one time there are over 120 students, from many countries including Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Portugal, Romania, Rwanda, Sweden, Taiwan, Turkey, the United States, and Zimbabwe, as well as the UK. These students come from a wide variety of professional and educational backgrounds and are of all ages. Members of teaching staff comprise the Director, Professors of Psychoanalysis, Professors of Analytical Psychology, Senior Lecturers, Honorary Senior Lecturers, Lecturers, and several Fellows including academics and qualified adult and/or child psychoanalytic psychotherapists and group analysts. Located within the best Faculty of Social Sciences in the UK, the Centre is surrounded by strong departments that support its work. At Essex you will gain the opportunity to work with and be taught by senior clinicians and world-class scholars.

The Centre's teaching programmes draw on its research excellence, as well as on the clinical expertise of many of its members of staff, and include the MA in Psychoanalytic Studies and MA in Jungian and Post-Jungian Studies and various collaborative courses. There are collaborations with other institutions, as in the MA in Refugee Care, with its unique psychosocial focus, which is offered jointly with the Tavistock and Portmann NHS Foundation Trust; with other departments at Essex, as in the interdisciplinary MA in Management and Organisational Dynamics (with the Essex Business School), MA in Philosophy and Psychoanalysis (with Philosophy), and MA in Myth, Literature, and the Unconscious (with Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies); and with employers, as in the Foundation Degree/BA in Therapeutic Communication and Therapeutic Organizations, aimed at those working with children and young people with special educational, social, and emotional needs. The Centre also has a thriving international community of about 50 students researching for a PhD or Professional Doctorate. In addition the Centre offers experiential days and residential short courses on working with groups. The Centre's research and teaching are thus both theoretical and applied and have local, national, and international impact on the psychotherapy professions, on other professional fields such as refugee care, business management, and education, and on a wide range of academic disciplines, especially in the humanities and social sciences.