How Can We Make Progress in Mental Healthcare Research - Neil Armstrong and Nicola Byrom

Many mental healthcare practitioners know that things are not alright. They know that many patients feel disempowered and harmed by the process. One nurse has told Dr Armstrong that “my son could easily be diagnosed with bipolar disorder but over my dead body will he ever see a psychiatrist”. There is a lot of anthropological work on the topic of mental health, and some of these works can provide a well-rounded description of what is happening to the person with the mental distress. However, most psychiatrists are not interested in that kind of research, and they have good reasons for this lack of interest. Today’s lecture will be different. It will be in the form of a dialogue. Dr Byrom and Dr Armstrong will discuss Armstrong’s new book, where Armstrong investigates the importance of how care is organized and what form social science and humanities research needs to take if it is to be of benefit to clinical research.
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About the speakers
Dr Neil Armstrong is a medical anthropologist. He is a fellow of Harris Manchester College, Oxford and a Research Associate in the department of psychology at the IoPPN. He uses novel ethnographic methods to explore mental health. In particular, he is interested in how bureaucratic institutions shape our experience of the world, and what we might, and might not be able to achieve through bureaucratic measures. He is currently conducting an ethnographic investigation of whether universities can become institutionally compassionate. He is the author of the book that forms the centre of the lecture: Collaborative Ethnographic: Working in Mental Health: Knowledge, Power and Hope in An Age of Bureaucratic Accountability, published by Routledge.
Dr Nicola Byrom is a senior lecturer in the department of psychology at the IoPPN. She is director of the UKRI funded Student Mental Health Research Network, SMaRteN. This network was established to accelerate research into student mental health, engage students in setting the research agenda, and effectively disseminate research findings, to professional services and students alike. As an active researcher, her work focuses on understanding youth and student mental health from a Public Health perspective. As such her research as contributed to the development of the Whole University Approach. She is currently supervising research projects addressing issues of loneliness and isolation for minoritized communities, including international students, and understanding the impact of racism on mental health for Black students. She is an internationally recognized expert in student mental health and is currently collaborating with researchers, educators and service providers in Canada, Europe, India and Australia. Prior to taking up her post at King’s in 2016, Dr Byrom founded and developed the national student mental health charity, Student Minds. Her research today continues to support strong collaborations with the charity.
This is the ninth lecture in the London Lecture Series 2023/24, which this year is on the subject of Madness and Mental Health. Watch the whole series here: • Madness and Mental Hea...
Presentation of Speaker - 00:00
Lecture - 01:38
Q&A - 41:00

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