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Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy
Published in: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 4/2020

Open Access 01-12-2020 | Short Communication

The value of doing philosophy in mental health contexts

Authors: Sophie Stammers, Rosalind Pulvermacher

Published in: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy | Issue 4/2020

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Abstract

People experiencing mental distress and illness are frequently on the receiving end of stigma, epistemic injustice, and social isolation. A range of strategies are required to alleviate the subsequent marginalisation. We ran a series ‘philosophy of mind’ workshops, in partnership with a third-sector mental health organisation with the aim of using philosophical techniques to challenge mental health stigma and build resources for self-understanding and advocacy. Participants were those with lived experience of mental distress, or unusual beliefs and experiences; mental health advocates; and mental health service providers (such as counsellors, psychologists and psychiatrists). We draw on a shared perspective as a participant and facilitator of the workshop series to assess their impact. We discuss the following benefits: (i) the opportunity for structured discussion of experiences and models; (ii) dialogue across different mental health backgrounds; (iii) the potential to reduce self-stigma and to increase self-understanding and advocacy; and (iv) the potential to alleviate (some) epistemic injustice. We invite researchers and mental health practitioners to consider further opportunities to investigate the potential benefits of philosophy groups in mental health settings to establish whether they generalise.
Footnotes
1
There are different frameworks for understanding the experiences and cognitions that often lead to diagnoses of mental illness. For instance, there are frameworks which defer to medical explanations, according to which these experiences are the result of biological processes, and are amenable to medical interventions (Mechanic 1999; Wardrope 2015). Then there are frameworks which defer to social explanations, and which locate understanding of these experiences in past trauma, relationships, and material circumstances (Mulvany 2001; Beresford et al. 2010). Then there are hybrid frameworks which emphasise a combination of factors (Pilgrim 2002; Johnstone and Boyle 2018). In this article we do not presuppose a particular framework, and refer instead to “the experience of mental distress”, or “cognitions which attract a psychiatric diagnosis”. Sometimes when we describe a particular study, we adopt the language of that study’s authors for the purpose of communicating their findings, but in doing so we do not thereby adopt their preferred framework. This article describes a workshop series in which we encouraged participants to explore the available frameworks, and adopt (or to develop) the framework that they felt best captured their experiences, and we welcome the reader to do this as well.
 
2
The original proposal was for 60 min sessions, with the following half-hour reserved in case participants wanted to continue discussion, but early on, both groups discussed and decided that they would like the sessions to run for the full 90 min.
 
3
Open access resources for the Philosophy of Mind Workshop Series can be found here: https://​www.​birmingham.​ac.​uk/​generic/​perfect/​resources/​philosophy-of-mind.​aspx
 
4
Examples were drawn from cases studied in the course of the first author’s research project, on the Pragmatic and Epistemic Role of Factually Erroneous Cognitions and Thoughts (Project PERFECT). Further information on PERFECT is available here: http://​www.​projectperfect.​eu/​.
 
5
Further information on the podcast, and a link to listen, can be found here: http://​www.​canstream.​co.​uk/​camden/​index.​php?​id=​970
 
7
See footnote 2 for a link to the open access resources.
 
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Metadata
Title
The value of doing philosophy in mental health contexts
Authors
Sophie Stammers
Rosalind Pulvermacher
Publication date
01-12-2020
Publisher
Springer Netherlands
Published in
Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy / Issue 4/2020
Print ISSN: 1386-7423
Electronic ISSN: 1572-8633
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11019-020-09961-4

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