I am a researcher and lecturer in philosophy and psychiatry. My research examines the boundaries of illness from a number of perspectives. The overarching question which unites my various investigations is whether and how we can delineate a boundary between aspects of human suffering and experience that are legitimate targets for medical concepts and responses, and those that are not. This has led me to consider various topics: the definition of concepts of mental disorder and distress; the diagnostic process in psychiatry; empathy and understanding in 'psychopathology'.
Since 2013, I began looking at strands of psychiatric activism seeking to shift the boundaries of illness by broadening the 'space of reasons' such that mental health phenomena cease to be disorders of the brain/mind. Distinct among these efforts are attempts to present Madness as an identity or a culture, and not as a psychiatric condition.
My book 'Madness & the Demand for Recognition: A Philosophical Inquiry into Identity & Mental Health Activism' is under contract with Oxford University Press and is coming out in 2018.
In my current position at Birkbeck College I am starting a new project on concepts of understanding in mental health, interrogating the possibility of and the means for arriving at a shared account among mental health professionals and service-users.
Current academic positions:
*Wellcome ISSF Research Fellow, Department of Philosophy, Birkbeck College, University of London
*Visiting Lecturer, Department of Philosophy, King's College London
Past academic appointments:
*2016-2017: Teaching Fellow in Arts and Humanities, St. George's University of London Medical School
*2015-2016: Junior Research Fellow, Institute of Advanced Studies, University College London
*2013-2015: Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Division of Philosophy & Ethics of Mental Health, University of Pretoria, South Africa
Clinical experience:
*2004-2007: Training rotation in psychiatry on the Guy’s, King’s College, and St. Thomas’ hospitals scheme (London).
*2007-2012: Part-time work as a psychiatrist in various healthcare settings including HMP Holloway mental health wing.
