Past Conferences and Events

The following section includes access to information and feedback of old ISPS conferences and events.

2021

Fiction about Psychosis: Impact, ethics, effects.

An ISPS UK webinar supported by Hearing the Voice, Durham University. 19 May 2021

Fiction is at the heart of human culture. Now is a perfect moment to ask what we need from it, and our storytellers. – Nathan Filer, Asylum (winter 2020) p 11.

Jasper Gibson’s The Octopus Man is a novel about a man called Tom who hears the voice of the Octopus God, Malamock. It is a novel about surviving what gets called psychosis and surviving society’s response to it. What challenges do writers and readers of fiction face when it comes to stories about madness?

Jacqui Dillon – activist, survivor and consultant on The Octopus Man – joined Jasper Gibson to discuss how this novel came into being and to explore some of the questions it poses around ethics and imagination, literary license and personal and political responsibilities. Their conversation was introduced by Angela Woods, ISPS Trustee, Associate Professor of Medical Humanities at Durham University and Co-Director of Hearing the Voice.

A recording of this webinar is now available on our YouTube channel at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MZFDGz7sus.

A New Mental Health Act? What Needs to Change

ISPS UK Webinar 25 February 2021

Our panel discussed what they feel needs to change in the Act, from professional and lived experience.

2020

**Dismantling the master’s house*: becoming anti-racist**

ISPS UK webinar 25 November 2020.

In this webinar, our panel explored the subject of institutional racism within the mental health system. We also launched a documentary film project which ISPSUK is proud to be supporting, emerging from our 2018 conference on psychosis and institutional racism. This was the first time the trailer had been screened publicly. The film is a hard hitting documentary examining structural racism in the UK mental health system. Told from a social justice perspective.

The webinar is available to watch on YouTube, please click here.

*’Dismantling the master’s house’ refers to a quote from Audrey Lorde, who described herself as a ‘black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet’. The quote reads “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house”.

Alongside Psychosis: Alternatives to Psychiatric Admission

ISPS UK webinar, 28 October 2020. To view talks from this webinar click here.

When there are no words: working creatively with psychosis

ISPS UK webinar, 30 July 2020. To view this webinar on YouTube click here.

Psychosis and social distancing: challenges and opportunities of support online

ISPS UK webinar, 4 June 2020. Highlights coming soon

Children, Young People and Psychosis: Beyond Early Intervention

ISPS UK conference, 24 January 2020 London

The talks from the conference are available to view on YouTube here.

2019

ISPS 21st International Congress of the ISPS, Rotterdam 2019

The congress title in 2019 was Stranger in the City. ISPS UK offered two bursaries to members to assist with the costs of attending the event. The successful applicants were Judith Varley and Jane Faulkner, and you can read their reports of the conference by clicking on their names below:

Judith Va r ley

Jane Faulkner