October 2024

Dr. Susie Orbach is a psychoanalyst and psychotherapist with a practice seeing individuals and couples and consulting to organisations. She is author of thirteen books, co-editor of a further volume. Millions of people have read Fat is a Feminist Issue in the 45 years since it was published. In Therapy: The Unfolding Story, based on her BBC Radio 4 series of the same name, was rebroadcast in 2018. Her book Bodies won the Women in Psychology award for best book, and was updated in 2019. She has also published many papers and she frequently writes for the press.

Photo of visiting tutor Professor Susie Orbach

Susie co-founded, with Luise Eichenbaum, The Women's Therapy Centre in London in 1976 and The Women's Therapy Center Institute in New York City in 1981, with Luise Eichenbaum and Carol Bloom. She wrote a column in The Guardian for ten years. She is the recipient of the first Lifetime Achievement Award for Psychoanalysis given by the British Psychoanalytical Society. She has a strong interest in social policy, and has co-authored recent government papers. She was also a member of government expert panels. She is a Fellow of the RSL.

For ten years, Susie was Visiting Professor of Psychoanalysis and Social Policy at LSE. She was Academic Visitor at Hertford College, Oxford. With American colleagues, she co-devised The Body Observational Diagnostic Interview (B.O.D.I.), an assessment and clinical tool useful in addressing the intergenerational transmission of body and eating issues. She is the recipient of many honorary doctorates and has lectured and supervised in Australia, New Zealand, North America, Germany, Greece, Brazil, Peru, India, and China.