Alexander G Romanitan (BFA, BA, MA, PG Cert, PG Dip)
Thesis title: Man-to-Man—Staying With the (in)Between: Inter-standing Intimacy and the Male Body Through Performative Writing and Artistic Presence
PhD in Counselling Studies
Contact details
Background
Alexander Romanitan is a doctoral researcher and practitioner working at the intersection of counselling, masculinity, and performative writing. His work explores how intimacy between men is experienced, expressed, and often constrained—particularly within therapeutic encounters.
Drawing on thinkers such as Michel Serres, Donna Haraway, Ursula K. Le Guin and Judith Butler, his research develops a performative methodology that resists linear argument and instead gathers fragments—clinical moments, embodied responses, and narrative vignettes—allowing meaning to emerge through relation, proximity, and encounter. His writing treats knowledge not as something to be extracted, but as something lived, felt, and composed through experience.
Alongside his academic work, Alexander is a practising therapist, where his clinical encounters directly inform his research. His interests include emotional depth, male intimacy, ADHD reframed through connection and sensitivity, and the role of storytelling within both therapy and research.
His broader work also extends into teaching and performance, including ensemble-based storytelling practices. Across these contexts, he is interested in how people come into relation—with themselves, with others, and with the spaces they inhabit.
Qualifications
BFA in Acting, Brooklyn College, City University of New York (2010)
BA in Psychology, Brooklyn College, City University of New York (2010)
MA in Drama and Movement Therapy, Royal Central School of Speech and Drama (2012)
PG Cert in Physical Theater, Accademia dell'Arte (2014)
PG Dip in Counselling and Psychotherapy, University of Edinburgh (2016)
Responsibilities & affiliations
Founding Member of Panta Rhei Theater Company
Research summary
My research explores how intimacy between men is experienced, negotiated, and expressed within therapeutic and relational contexts. I am particularly interested in moments of connection that resist easy articulation—where emotional, bodily, and relational intensities exceed conventional psychological frameworks.
Methodologically, the project develops a performative approach to qualitative inquiry grounded in artistic presence. Rather than producing linear arguments or discrete findings, the research gathers fragments—clinical encounters, narrative vignettes, and embodied responses—and allows them to sit in relation. Meaning is not extracted but emerges through proximity, juxtaposition, and the unfolding of experience over time. In this way, the work shifts from an evidence-based model of research toward an encounter-based orientation, where knowledge arises through lived, relational engagement rather than detached observation.
The work is informed by thinkers such as Michel Serres, Donna Haraway, and Ursula K. Le Guin, particularly in its attention to relationality, storytelling, and non-linear understandings of knowledge and time. Within this framework, knowledge is approached as something eventful, embodied, and composed through encounter.
Alongside this, the research contributes to counselling and psychotherapy by rethinking masculinity beyond deficit-based models. It introduces the concept of menempathy to describe forms of emotional attunement and depth in men that are often overlooked or misread. It further proposes an understanding of emotional depth, sensitivity, and intense relational capacity—often associated with ADHD or overexcitability—not as pathology, but as forms of deep connection that call for new therapeutic languages and practices.