Imperfect Cognitions

Today's post is by Nimra Ahsan. Nimra is a fifth year medical student at the University of Birmingham, where she is currently completing a Masters in Mental Health. She is interested in how the study of mental health can help inform and improve future clinical practice, including her own. This is the last post in a series of perspectives from students taking the Philosophy and Ethics of Mental Health and Wellbeing module. Nimra Ahsan The interaction between psychiatry and psychopathology is one that is blending (Stanghellini and Broome, 2014). With a contemporary focus on patient experience, human subjectivity (or phenomenology) is creating a holistic perspective concerning mental health conditions, such as schizophrenia. Described as a ‘disturbance of minimal self’, our understanding of schizophrenia has deepened and the ipseity-disturbance model developed by Sass and Parnas has contributed to this substantially ( Nelson, Parnas and Sass, 2014 ). This model led to the formation o...

This post is by Olivia Siegfried, currently studying for a Master’s degree in the School of Psychology at the University of Birmingham. Olivia is interested in youth mental health, personality disorders, and forensic psychology, and adopts a social constructionist perspective to understand these issues. This is part of a series of posts by students of the Philosophy and Ethics of Mental Health and Wellbeing module at the Institute for Mental Health. They share some of their views on key topics discussed in the module. Olivia Siegfried Responsibility without blame As personality disorders are notoriously hard to treat, Hannah Pickard has put forward the ‘responsibility without blame’ approach ( Pickard, 2011 ) for clinicians to adopt to foster the best clinical outcomes. Although sounding inherently paradoxical, we can hold people responsible without blaming them by segregating responsibility from morality and instead defining it through a person’s agency.  Taking responsibility for...

Today's post is by Nuria Gardia, a Mental Health Master’s student at University of Birmingham with a newly discovered passion for Philosophy. Her interests lay in the intersection between philosophy and psychology to better understand how the mind “overcomes” trauma and the relationships between mind-body and self-world. Specifically, how trauma affects human experience and thus, human reality.  This is part of a series of posts by students of the Philosophy and Ethics of Mental Health and Wellbeing module at the Institute for Mental Health. They share some of their views on key topics discussed in the module. Nuria Gardia Autistic women navigate a world made by-and-for neurotypicals within a society that ignores their strengths ( Russell et al. 2019 ), and wrongfully denies their capacity as knowers ( Catala et al. 2021 ), by underdiagnosing them and excluding them from research ( D'Mello et al. 2022 ). Moreover, without a diagnosis, autistic women are wrongly deprived vital ...

Today's post is by Jen Garbett, a part-time Mental Health MSc student at the University of Birmingham. Jen is interested in all aspects of mental health in psychology, especially in moral responsibility in psychopathy and the nature of delusions in psychosis and other psychiatric disorders.  This is part of a series of posts by students of the Philosophy and Ethics of Mental Health and Wellbeing module at the Institute for Mental Health. They share some of their views on key topics discussed in the module. Jen Garbett The concepts of responsibility and blame naturally go hand in hand for many of us. For real blame to be executed and appropriate consequences to follow, such as a prison sentence, one must be considered responsible for their actions. However, if one is to take responsibility for their actions, does this undoubtedly mean they should be blamed for them too? In 2011,  Hanna Pickard  created a framework that separates responsibility and blame, based on her exper...

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 ...