Professorial Lecture – Professor Gail A Hornstein -First Person Accounts of Psychosis: Challenges for Mental Health Professionals

Professorial Lecture – Professor Gail A Hornstein
First-person accounts of psychosis: challenges for mental health professionals
Friday 31 May 2013
5 for 5.30pm
Room 9130, Cantor Building, Sheffield Hallam University City Campus

Lecture supported by Sheffield Hallam University’s Department of Nursing and Sheffield Arts and Wellbeing Network

A vast gulf exists between the way medicine explains psychiatric illness and the experiences of those who suffer. Professor Hornstein’s lecture helps us to bridge that gulf, guiding us through the inner lives of those diagnosed with mental illness and emerging with nothing less than a new model for understanding mental distress, one another and ourselves. She will address the importance of listening to the accounts of those who have experienced psychosis as a central component of any mental health practice.

Gail A Hornstein is Professor of Psychology at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts (USA). Her research spans the history of 20th century psychology, psychiatry and psychoanalysis and has been supported by the National Library of medicine, the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. She has compiled a bibliography of first-person narratives of madness which now lists more than 1,000 titles. Her new book, Agnes’s Jacket: A Psychologist’s Search for the Meanings of Madness (PCCS Books, UK edition), shows us how the insights of those diagnosed with mental illness can help us radically reconceive fundamental assumptions about madness and mental life. For more information on her work see http://www.gailhornstein.com/

The lecture will be introduced by Peter Bullimore, one of the Chairs of the Hearing Voices Network, and the Chair of the Paranoia Network. Peter heard his first voice aged seven, after suffering sexual abuse at the hands of a child minder. Through the help of the Hearing Voices Network he was able to reclaim his life from the system. The Hearing Voices Network is a voluntary organization that is made up of people who hear voices and professionals who all share the same ethos that hearing voices is a common human experience. Peter has worked collaboratively with Manchester University for 12 years on the COPE course collaboration in psychosocial education. He also teaches at many other Universities and runs workshops internationally on voices and paranoia working in countries such as Australia, New Zealand and Greece.  He is currently undertaking a research project at Manchester University, examining the 10-year collaborative work between the University and the Network.

Places are free and include pre-event refreshments, but must be booked in advance. Email events@shu.ac.uk