Philosophy SIG Annual Conference 2025 Resources 

Welcome to the Philosophy Special Interest Group Annual Conference 2025. This year's theme is 'autonomy and responsibility in psychiatry and mental health care.'

We look forward to welcoming you to RCPsych, London.

Please note that the presentations are the intellectual property of the speaker and the College and any unauthorised broadcasting/copying of the material is strictly prohibited. Presentations are only available where speakers have kindly provided permission.

Mental disorder, self-disclosure, and responsibility - Dr Anneli Jefferson, Senior Lecturer, Cardiff University

A journey into neurolaw: can neuroscience provide normative borders between mental health and disorder? - Professor Drozdstoj St. Stoyanov and Dr Kristina Stoyanova, Medical University Plovdiv

Why philosophy? - Dr Sam Wilkinson, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Exeter

Agency, Responsibility and Recovery: Domain-Specific Approaches to Personality - Professor Jonathan Hill, Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Dr Anna Bergqvist, Reader In Philosophy, Manchester Metropolitan University


 


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You will automatically receive a certificate of attendance 1 week after the event has taken place.

This course is eligible for up to 6 CPD hours, subject to peer group approval.

View the conference programme, showing session details and timings for the day.

Mental disorder, self-disclosure, and responsibility
Dr Annelli Jefferson, Senior Lecturer, Cardiff University

One common approach to responsibility for actions influenced by mental ill health asks what the person's capacities at the time of action were and to what extent they were influenced by their mental disorder. A different approach looks at self-disclosure - are the actions reflective of the person's character and values, or are they better understood as a product of the illness? In the talk, I look at whether the self-disclosure view is a useful lens for talking about moral responsibility for actions influenced by mental disorders.

A journey into neurolaw: can neuroscience provide normative borders between mental health and disorder?
Professor Drozdstoj St. Stoyanov and Dr Kristina Stoyanova, Medical University Plovdiv

Is it possible to establish normative borders and nomological epistemic structures in psychology and psychiatry? 
We will compare a global study on social norms in which we have recently participated with our own experience in psychiatric-psychological forensic expertise, in order to reflect on the dimensions of the normative boundaries between mental health and pathology.

Why Philosophy?
Dr Sam Wilkinson, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Exeter

In my talk I explain why specifically *philosophy* of psychiatry is a highly valuable enterprise. I discuss the different ways in which philosophy can contribute to psychiatry and give some examples.

Agency, Responsibility and Recovery: Domain-Specific Approaches to Personality
Professor Jonathan Hill, Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Dr Anna Bergqvist, Reader In Philosophy, Manchester Metropolitan University

The workshop will discuss philosophical perspectives on agency, responsibility and recovery. The focus of the workshop will be on a constellation of difficulties with emotion regulation, identity and interpersonal functioning, which we will refer to as ‘Borderline Features’ setting aside controversies regarding the status of the personality disorders. Starting with the observation that people with these difficulties, “typically lose jobs, face economic hardship, fail to acquire or maintain desired mates or friends, clash with family….”(Garcia et al 2024) and in contrast with current theories of personality, we place effective action at the heart of our account. We draw on, among others, Aristotle, Wittgenstein, Austin and Lewis, to propose that doing “the right thing, at the right time, and in the right manner” requires acting according to the shared rules and conventions of the social domain, for example in work or friendships, and securing uptake with others in accordance with those rules. These actions are forward looking and at the transition from adolescence to adult life may have long term consequences. ‘Agency, both subjective and enacted, promotes identity. Borderline features arise, we will propose, from an undermining of social domains based agency, and recovery from their restoration.

Dr Anna Bergqvist
Dr Anna Bergqvist is Reader in Philosophy at Manchester Metropolitan University and Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Oxford. Her principal research interests are metaethics and aesthetics, moral perception and the philosophy of psychiatry and mental health. She is editor of Philosophy and Museums (Cambridge University Press, 2016), Evaluative Perception (Oxford University Press, 2018) and Lived Experience in Philosophy and Mental Health (Cambridge University Press, 2023). She has also published extensively on narrative particularism, Iris Murdoch’s moral philosophy, objectivity and value, shared decision-making, and person-centered health care. She has recently completed a major National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) research project on improving patient experience under the Mental Health Act (Improving the Experiences of African Caribbean Men detained under the Mental Health Act: A Co-Produced Intervention Using the Silences Framework and is currently preparing a monograph on implementing particularism in medicine and public health alongside two academic handbooks, The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Public Mental Health contracted for publication with Oxford University Press and A Handbook of Phenomenology, Values-based Practice and Shared Decision-Making in Personalised Mental Health Care with Springer Nature.

Professor Jonathan Hill
I am Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Manchester Metropolitan University, Visiting Professor of Philosophy, University of Reading, Honorary Consultant in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Oxford Health Foundation Trust. I co-authored the book 'Mind, Meaning and Mental Disorder' with Derek Bolton, and recently have published a series of philosophical papers on normativity, action and mistakes in biology. In 2008 I established the Wirral Child Health and Development Study of antenatal and early postnatal influences on development and psychopathology, and we are now following participants through adolescence.

Dr Anneli Jefferson

Senior Lecturer, Cardiff University

Anneli Jefferson is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, Cardiff University, UK. Her main research areas are moral philosophy and philosophy of psychology and psychiatry. She is especially interested in the intersection of these areas, for example in questions relating to moral psychology or the relationship between mental illness and moral responsibility. Recent publications include her monograph Are Mental Disorders Brain Disorders? Routledge 2022, 'Blaming the Dead' European Journal of Philosophy 2024 , and ''Terminal Anorexia, Treatment Refusal and Decision Making Capacity' Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 2024
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Dr Temi Metseagharun
Chair of the RCPSYCH Philosophy SIG, International member RCPSYCH-Pacific Division, FRANZCP
My name is Temi Metseagharun, I am based in Perth, Western Australia and I took up the position as chair of the Philosophy SIG in June 2025 - just under five months ago. I welcome you all, philosopher psychiatrists and trainees, to this conference and I hope you are all as excited as I am. The theme of this conference is one that every practitioner must confront in their everyday practice. I look forward to learning more and understanding the perspectives of all speakers today.

Ms Teresa Munby
First Tier Tribunal Judge, Mental Health
I am a part time Tribunal Judge in mental health, a role in which I have been for over 20 years. I sit on a variety of adult cases as well as being a CAMHS specialist to hear patient applications and references of those detained in adult acute as well as those in low, medium and high security hospitals.
My first degree was in Philosophy and I had a special interest in philosophy of mind and ethics.

Professor Dr Drozdstoy Stoyanov
Medical University Plovdiv

Full Professor of Psychiatry and Medical Psychology, Director of Research Institute. International Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. Vice Chair of the Philosophy SIG at RCPsych from 2012 to 2014. Published more than 260 papers, cited ~4300 times. Among Top 2 % most influential scientists in the World in the field of Philosophy.

Dr Kristina Stoyanova

Kristina Stoyanova is is a researcher in the field of Translational Neuroscience at the Scientific Institute of the Medical University of Plovdiv, Bulgaria; she holds a PhD in Psychology and is a scientist specializing in psychometrics and personality neuroscience.

Dr Sam Wilkinson
Sam Wilkinson is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Exeter and co-leads the Health and Biomedical Research Strand at EGENIS. He specialises in philosophy of psychiatry and cognitive science. He specialises in delusions, hallucinations, the nature of mental disorder and concepts of mental health. He is author of over 40 peer-reviewed papers and two books, including the Routledge Contemporary Introduction to Philosophy of Psychiatry.

Join the Philosophy SIG for interactive and thought provoking sessions.

 

The next Drop-in Session is:

Wednesday 28 January 2026 - Biological Psychiatrists and the Philosophy of Biology

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