Imperfect Cognitions

This blog post is by Zsuzsanna Chappell. Zsuzsanna is an independent scholar and research associate at the Centre for the Philosophy of Natural and Social Sciences, London School of Economics. She currently writes on the social philosophy and ethics of mental illness, and the role of researchers with subject-relevant lived experience in the human sciences. Previously, she held academic positions at the London School of Economics and the University of Manchester and is the author of Deliberative Democracy: A Critical Introduction , Palgrave 2012. Zsuzsanna reports from the third annual Philosophy of Psychiatry and Lived Experience workshop . The workshop was held on 17-18 April 2023, online (hosted by the University of Umeå). The aim of these workshops has been to bring together  philosophers and philosophy-adjacent scholars who self-identify as having lived experience of mental disability / difference, and are also writing on these topics.  Zsuzsanna Chappell Our first post d...

Aimee Wilson This post is part of our series of accounts by experts by experience. Roberta Payne wrote about schizophrenia and outsider art in December, and Ellen White about OCD in January. Today Aimee Wilson tells us about BPD. Hi! I am Aimee and I blog over on www.imnotdisordered.blogspot.co.uk . I’m currently in recovery from Borderline Personality Disorder, after a six year long battle with the illness and a two year admission in a specialist hospital. When Lisa emailed me asking if I would write a post about the positive aspects of the things that have been deemed symptoms of BPD, I was intrigued. I guess, naturally, I’d only ever moaned and ranted about these things especially when they are the things that cause me to be hospitalised or to self-harm and attempt suicide. So, to think of positives sounded like a good challenge. When I was diagnosed with BPD, the diagnostic criteria were to have at least five of nine possible symptoms, and it was widely agreed by prof...

In this post, Jacqueline Gunn and Brent Potter present their recent book Borderline Personality Disorder: New Perspectives on a Stigmatizing and Overused Diagnosis (Praeger Publishers Inc). Dr Gunn is a licensed clinical psychologist in private practice in New York, specializing in Eating Disorders, Trauma, Interpersonal Problems as well as a variety of other psychological disorders. Dr. Brent Potter is a psychotherapist and wellness specialist with 20 years of direct clinical service. He is the Director for the Society for Laingian Studies, based in Thousand Oaks, California. When you are reading our book, be prepared to challenge your view of what is called “borderline personality disorder” and even the way you see all so-called psychiatric ‘disorders’. This is what we have done as co-authors. We sound a little strong at times, but we really believe in what we are presenting. We take you through exactly why we take this approach, give you historical context and also expla...