The value of doing philosophy in mental health contexts
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SHORT COMMUNICATION
The value of doing philosophy in mental health contexts Sophie Stammers1 · Rosalind Pulvermacher2
© The Author(s) 2020
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. Keywords Mental health · Philosophy groups · Epistemic injustice · Stigma · Mental health advocacy
Background
Mental health stigma
In this paper, we report on a series of ‘philosophy of mind’ workshops, which were run in partnership with a third-sector mental health organisation during the winter of 2017–2018. We are the workshop series designer and facilitator (an academic philosopher working on an interdisciplinary research project on mental health at the time of the workshop series), and a workshop participant and presenter. Our perspective is informed by the lived experience of mental distress, and knowledge of philosophical approaches to mental health.1 This paper constitutes our shared reflections on the workshop series, and where we speak from our distinct perspectives and experiences, we sign-post this accordingly (e.g. “from the participant/facilitator perspective…”). A number of background conditions motivate the project, including mental health stigma, epistemic injustice and social isolation. We briefly describe each in turn:
People experiencing mental distress and illness are frequently on the receiving end of stigma, in which they are unjustifiably assumed to have, or otherwise associated with, negative characteristics. For instance, people are shown to associate mental illness with incompetence and being dangerous (Corrigan and Watson 2002; Phelan et al. 2000). The stigma around mental health is pervasive (e.g. Brener et al. 2013; Peris et al. 2008; and see Puddifoot 2019 for an overview). People who experience mental distress have been
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