Workshops and knowledge exchange events aimed to bring together international and interdisciplinary partners to collaborate and to develop new methodologies in phenomenological psychopathology. Two awards of up to £3000 were offered for in-person workshop, which are used to cover organisational expenses (e.g. the speakers’ travel expenses, accommodation and catering). Virtual workshops receive operational support from the project team for their organisation and delivery, as well as input and direction from the project leaders. Following the completion of the knowledge exchange event, awardees are required to submit a 750-word summary detailing the outputs of the event.
Some of the award winners include:
Paul Lodge
Paul Lodge is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford. Whilst most of his professional work has been in Early Modern Philosophy, he has had a bipolar diagnosis for 30 years and spent much of that time engaging with his condition philosophically. More recently, he has co-convened the annual workshop ‘Philosophy of Psychiatry and Lived Experience’.
Sofia Jeppsson
Sofia Jeppsson is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Umeå University/Ubmejen universitiähta. She started her philosophical career writing about free will, moral responsibility, and applied ethics. In recent years, she has moved more and more towards the philosophy of psychiatry and Madness and has written about and analyzed her own experiences in several papers.
Paul and Sofia organised the hybrid workshop 'Madpeople's Coping Mechanisms', September 25-26, 2023, at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford.
Danny van Deurzen-Smith
Danny van Deurzen-Smith (he/she/they) is an autistic and genderqueer existential coach and course leader for the MA in Existential Coaching at the New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling, where they are also the administrative director. Danny co-facilitates a monthly support group for LGBTQ+ autistic adults and runs regular workshops on gender fluidity, working existentially with autism and existential coaching. In their coaching practice, they work predominantly with autistic and LGBTQ+ clients.
Marc Boaz
Marc Boaz (he/him) is a practising existential-phenomenological psychotherapist researching in the fields of applied sociology, psychology, psychotherapy and philosophy. He is a member of the UK Trauma Council (hosted by Anna Freud Centre for Children and Families) and a visiting Professor in Public Mental Health at the University of Northampton.
Ruth Millman
Ruth Millman (she/her) is a counselling psychologist and existential psychotherapist, primarily working with neurodivergent and LGBTQIA+ individuals, couples and families. She is also the course leader for the neurodiversity postgraduate programmes at the New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling. Alongside Danny, Ruth co-facilitates a support group for LGBTQ+ autistic adults, and delivers training on neurodivergence, existentialism and psychotherapy.
Meg-John Barker
Meg-John Barker (they/them) is a writer and writing mentor with a background in critical psychology and existential psychotherapy. Their self-help style books, graphic guides, and zines explain and explore gender, sexuality, relationships, and mental health in accessible ways for a general audience. They are an associate of the Centre for Transforming Sexuality and Gender at the University of Brighton.
Danny, Marc, Ruth and Meg-John are working on a project entitled 'Exploring intersectional (queer and neurodivergent) contributions to phenomenological psychopathology' which will include a workshop on this topic.
Guilherme Messas
Guilherme Messas is a professor at the Santa Casa de São Paulo School of Medical Sciences and has been working as a psychiatrist for the last 28 years in São Paulo, Brazil. Guilherme strives to extend the influence of phenomenological psychopathology in his society, along with the Values Based Centre, St Catherine's College, Oxford, by participating actively in some political councils in São Paulo.
Valter Luis Piedade Neto
Valter Luiz Piedade Neto is a psychiatrist from São Paulo, Brazil. Valter is doing a master’s degree at Santa Casa de São Paulo School of Medical Sciences, under the supervision of Prof. Guilherme Messas, exploring the intersection between psychiatry and social sciences, with a special focus on cultural studies and values on persons with lived experience.
Luca Fasciolo Maschião
Luca Fasciolo Maschião graduated from Santa Casa de São Paulo School of Medical Sciences, where they worked on LGBTQIA+ population health, studying HIV and mental health epidemiology in a multidisciplinary research group. Now Luca has joined Professor Guilherme Messas in creating a phenomenological psychopathology research group and developing several ongoing projects.
Guilherme, Valter and Luca are organising an online event entitled 'The Brazil-UK Workshop: A phenomenological renewal of the mental health paradigm'.
Philipp Schmidt
is an early-career philosopher and psychologist. He currently works as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Würzburg, Germany, in the project “Non-Objectual Intentionality: Affect and Tendency”, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). His research fields are the philosophy of psychiatry, philosophy of emotions, and philosophy of mind.
Valentina Petrolini
Valentina Petrolini is an early-career philosopher of psychology and psychiatry. She currently works as Juan de la Cierva postdoctoral researcher at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), where she is a member of the Language in Neurodiversity Lab (Lindy Lab). Her research interests center around the boundaries between normal and pathological and on the notion of vulnerability applied to psychiatric conditions.
The Workshop and Knowledge Exchange Award gave our online workshop Camouflaging: Philosophical and Clinical Perspectives, held on September 28 & 29, 2023 extraordinary visibility. We were able to attract a handful of distinguished keynote speakers and received a considerable number of responses to our CfP, through which we recruited excellent speakers for shorter talks. Given the event’s great success, we decided to plan a second edition titled Camouflaging: Enacting Familiarity, which will take place online on September 26 & 27, 2024. The 2024 edition will feature speakers from the previous workshop and several new invited participants. Our aim is to establish a tradition of meeting online once per year. Information about our workshop can be found on our website. We are currently preparing a revised manuscript for a leading journal at the intersection of philosophy and psychology…(and will soon) post our paper on camouflaging in autism and Borderline Personality Disorder, which developed out of our cooperation fostered by the Renewing Phenomenological Psychopathology Project.