About Mental Health Humanities
Mental Health Humanities at Birmingham fosters transdisciplinary and cross-sectoral collaboration.
COVID-19 has thrown into sharp relief the importance and vitality of the arts, culture and creativity to health and wellbeing. In parallel, there has been updated guidance from the General Medical Council on the training of doctors and a growth in social prescribing.
We propose to generate deeper collaborations which cut across campus, establishing Birmingham as a centre for Mental Health Humanities. Whilst we have a rich research profile in Medical Humanities across the University, to date this has not been drawn into focus or into dialogue with the dynamic mental health research being led out of the Institute for Mental Health and across campus.
To foster transdisciplinarity, we have developed a network of interested academics, building opportunities for cross-college collaborations, instigating inclusive and equitable knowledge exchange with academics both within and beyond the University of Birmingham, and with public, service user and clinical stakeholders/partners. In so doing, we intend the network to contribute to the critical and methodological frameworks of Medical Humanities as well as to those living through the complexities of mental ill-health and distress.