2013 Press Releases
UCC hosts conference on madness
The conference speakers include people with experiences of madness or distress as well as academics, researchers and practitioners.
This conference focuses on madness as a meaningful human experience.
Madness is a word that continues to invite controversy, with some perceiving it to be a derogatory term, others perceiving it as a celebration of human creativity and diversity, whilst others position themselves somewhere in the middle. The dominant biomedical view of madness has led to responses that are primarily, and often exclusively, of a biochemical nature, in which the significance of meaning and life contexts are generally ignored.
One of the keynote speakers Liz Brosnan, a researcher/trainer coming from the perspective of having survived madness and psychiatry, points out “that this annual conference in UCC is the only place that those of us who have experienced pain and trauma can publicly express our righteous anger at the failures of the care system to understand our pain is a natural human response to a harsh, uncaring environment not a brain disease. At these conferences we can feel heard and respected and maybe find some comfort that professional allies are willing to listen to us about how mental health services can stop damaging our lives further. For me personally, I am delighted to be offered a chance to speak publically about my doctoral research at the University of Limerick on the tensions inherent in service-user participation in mental health services. We participate to try to change the system but at what cost if we are banging our heads against the brick wall of a fixed psychiatric mindset.”
Another keynote speaker Professor Gail Hornstein stresses that “the re-framing of more and more actions, feelings, and perceptions as brain-based disorders is eroding our capacity to understand ourselves and to assess and cope with life’s challenges. We need to create the conditions that enable people to construct coherent narratives of their lives that can make sense of their thoughts and feelings and be expressed clearly. Fostering genuine relationships is crucial to this process, for it is in connection with others that we cultivate our capacities for empathy and stretch our own sense of possibility”.
The conference organisers Harry Gijbels and Lydia Sapouna anticipate that the conference offers opportunities to learn about new ways of understanding madness beyond bio-psychiatry. “We also hope that the conference encourages delegates to engage with creative approaches in engaging with and responding to madness”.
This conference is unique as it is free for all participants and involves people from diverse backgrounds (self-experience, survivors, professionals, academics, carers/supporters) presenting, discussing and debating critical and creative perspectives on and beyond the dominant bio-medical approach. The 2010 conference saw the launch of the Critical Voices Network Ireland (CVNI), a network of people interested in considering and developing responses to human distress, which are creative, enabling, respectful and firmly grounded in human rights. The conference will include an open forum to discuss the on-going work of the CVNI.
Keynote Speakers: Liz Brosnan, PhD, Survivor Researcher, Galway, Ireland; Gail A. Hornstein, Professor of Psychology, Mount Holyoke College (Massachusetts, USA); John Read, Professor of Clinical Psychology, University of Liverpool, England; Doug Ross, artist, founding member of Renew. Teresa Tuohy, Health Research Board funded PHD Candidate, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland; Irene van de Giessen, Owner of the Convalescent Talent Agency, Expert by Experience, Vlissingen, Netherlands.
Concurrent sessions: the conference includes 30 concurrent sessions reflecting the conference theme.
The Conference organisers are Harry Gijbels, Catherine McAuley School of Nursing and Midwifery, and Lydia Sapouna, School of Applied Social Studies, University College Cork, Ireland.
Programme details available on http://www.ucc.ie/en/nursingmidwifery/news/