Imperfect Cognitions

Today's post is by Katya Lukianova and Tim Steffenmeier who have recently co-authored a paper entitled: "Well, in the case of my mom… Personal stories as negotiable arguments in public forums" , appeared in the Journal of Argumentation in Context . Ekaterina (Katya) Lukianova is a program officer at the Kettering Foundation in the United States, with an interest in developing linguistic tools for analyzing public deliberation. Prior to this, she taught in the Department of English Philology and Cultural Studies at Saint Petersburg State University in Russia. Tim Steffensmeier is Professor of communication & leadership at Kansas State University. He is the founding director of Third Floor Research at the Kansas Leadership Center. Katya Lukianova The other day my husband and I (Katya) were having a late night chat about everything and anything after having put our two kids in bed. He was telling me a story about a friend from his student days, and how that friend, who m...

Today’s post is by Rosa Ritunnano, consultant psychiatrist and PhD candidate at the Institute for Mental Health University of Birmingham. Here she talks about a recent paper she co-authored with Clara Humpston and Matthew Broome, “ Finding order within the disorder: a case study exploring the meaningfulness of delusions ”, published in the British Journal of Psychiatry Bulletin. In this paper, we ask questions relating to delusions and meaning, as prompted by the clinical encounter with Harry who is, in his own words, “the happiest man in the world”. Harry was referred to Early Intervention for Psychosis (EIP) services for a suspected first episode of psychosis, after telling his doctor that he had been the target of a worldwide conspiracy for more than 5 years. Harry believes that people are being told lies since the day they are born, and that we all live in a sort of “Truman Show” where the government and the NASA are using fake imagery to fool people into believing that what th...

In this post, Antonella Mazziotta, MSc student at the  Institute for Mental Health  at the University of Birmingham, discusses Gender Dysphoria. Gender Dysphoria is a topic not so well understood by scientists and society with this being reflected in the type of treatments and stigma around LGBTQ+ communities. Antonella's research interests include exploring Gender Dysphoria in childhood as well as language comprehension and production in Mental Health conditions. Antonella Mazziotta I had the opportunity to observe how dysphoria affects transgender people, especially children, and how society plays a vital role in the psychological outcomes of treatment for young people. This led to my interest in researching the pathological features of Gender Dysphoria. Do we believe that transgender children are aware of their inner identity or simply confused and therefore have a mental disorder? The DSM-IV called this condition ‘Gender Identity Disorder’ which was changed to ‘Gender Dysp...

In this post, Lauren Dixon examines arguments by Sullivan, Pickard, and Pearce on epistemic injustice and nonsuicidal self-injury in healthcare. Lauren argues that the notion of epistemic injustice is useful for patient care and clinician education but that harm minimisation techniques are not the way forward. Lauren is a current MSc student at the  Institute for Mental Health , University of Birmingham. Her research interests include childhood well-being, bullying risk/protective factors, special educational needs and mental health advocacy. NSSI (non-suicidal self-injury) “ refers to the direct and deliberate destruction of one's own body tissue in the absence of lethal intent .” Epistemic injustice (a notion developed by Fricker, 2007 ) can be encompassed as failing to recognise a person as a ‘knower’ based on preconceived, and often incorrect ideas, about their identity. Fricker argues that there are two types of epistemic injustice: Testimonial Injustice (TI) and Her...

Today's post is by Dan Reardon who is currently an MSc student at the Institute for Mental Health , University of Birmingham. Dan is a medical doctor and an entrepreneur who has founded multiple fitness and nutrition companies, including venture capital funded FitnessGenes. He has been featured in InStyle, The New York Times, Men’s Fitness, Inc, Well+Good, Livestrong and on Fox News, ABC News, Inside Edition, Today, BBC News, and “The Doctors.” Dan has a keen interest in the demedicalization of young people, digital wellbeing and resilience. Dan Reardon I have a long-held belief that mental illness is far from something that is “real” in the disease sense, and yet the rate of growth of mental disorders, both the number of potential diagnoses (described by Foucault as being an invention of 19th century reformers), and the number of people suffering, is exponential. I’ve read countless accounts of mental illness being a choice of those that “suffer”, but I’ve realised the statement ...