Gunnar Karlsson Professor emeritus

Professor at the Department of Education, Stockholm University, since 2004. Associate professor of Psychology, 1991. I defended my Ph.D-thesis, entitled A phenomenological psychological method: Theoretical foundation and empirical application in the field of decision making and choice, at the Department of Psychology, Stockholm University 1987. I am also a private practicing psychoanalyst and psychotherapist.

Research interests

Psychoanalysis and phenomenology, Sex/gender with focus on masculinity, The epistemological foundation of human sciences, Phenomenology as an empirical project.

My present research is concerned mainly with sex and gender issues from psychoanalytic and phenomenological perspectives. In particular I am interested in investigating the character and psychogenesis of masculinity.

My research during the past few years has been focused on psychoanalysis, where I have used a phenomenological frame of reference in order to discuss important issues for psychoanalysis. An important reference in this context is the book Psychoanalysis in a new light (also published in Swedish Psykoanalysen i ny belysning), which deals with the epistemological foundation of psychoanalysis, such as, for example, the role of consciousness in psychoanalysis, the relationship of consciousness and the unconscious, the sexual drive (libido) as the core of the unconscious, the ground of the libido in pre-scientific sexual life-world experiences and the concept of truth in psychoanalysis, as well as a critique of the so-called "neuropsychoanalysis".

I have worked out an Empirical Phenomenological Psychological method, the so-called EPP-method, which is a combined phenomenological and hermeneutical method. The most thorough presentation of the method is in the book Psychological qualitative research from a phenomenological perspective (published 1993 and a second edition 1995). The EPP-method has been used in many disciplines, such as education, medicine, occupational therapy, physical therapy, psychology. Apart from applying the EPP-method to decision making and choice, I myself have used it in studying many different phenomena, such as the experience of being blind, the experience of guilt and shame, the psychotic experience.

Karlsson, G. (2023). Psychoanalytic and phenomenological reflections on masculinity. London: Routledge.

Hitta publikationen open acess här

Karlsson, G. & Ulenius, J. (2022). En fenomenologisk studie om åldrande och lärande. I C. Bjursell & M. Malec Rawinski, (red:er), Äldres lärande – utblickar och insikter. Stockholm: Natur & Kultur.

Karlsson, G. (2020). The function of phenomenology for psychoanalysis. I C. Bodea & D. Popa, (red:er), Describing the unconscious. Phenomenological perspectives on the subject of psychoanalysis. Bukarest: Zeta Books.   

Karlsson, G. (2019). Att bedriva empirisk fenomenologisk forskning – förutsättningar, karaktär, utmaningar. I H. Dahlbberg, S. Ellingsen, B. Martinsen & S. Rosberg (red:er), Fenomenologi i praktiken. Fenomenologisk forskning i ett skandinaviskt perspektiv. Stockholm: Liber.

Karlsson, G (2019). Det maskulina projektet - Psykoanalytiska och fenomenologiska reflektioner, Östlings Bokförlag Symposion.