EPIC seminar series: Dr Jay Watts

 

Date: Monday 24^th March 2025 

Time: 1pm – 2:15pm

Zoom talk: link at bottom of email

 

Title: Epistemic Injustice and Psychiatric Diagnosis: Who Gets to Be Believed?

 

Abstract: Few topics in mental health spark more controversy than psychiatric diagnosis. From ward rounds to social media and the broadsheet press, debates are often heated, polarising, and destructive. Yet these discussions frequently treat all psychiatric diagnoses as if they function the same way—but they do not. Diagnoses like depression often confer credibility, opening doors to care and support. Others, like schizophrenia and borderline personality disorder, are far more likely to strip patients of epistemic agency, determining whose voices are heard and whose suffering is dismissed. Even within the same diagnosis, experiences diverge: for some, a label provides meaning and empowerment; for others, it is an act of epistemic violence. Efforts to challenge psychiatric categorisation, however, risk slipping into accusations of false consciousness, where those who do not accept or reject their diagnosis in the 'correct' way are framed as simply mistaken. I argue that epistemic injustice provides a crucial framework for navigating this complexity, allowing us to critique diagnosis while respecting the varied meanings patients ascribe to their diagnoses. By centering patient epistemic agency, we can develop more just approaches to future psychiatric nosologies.

Zoom details:

Time: Mar 24, 2025 01:00 PM Greenwich Mean Time

Join Zoom Meeting

https://bristol-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/97374791997?pwd=OwBZ0XXx206RFslL8ErHBbH0S25cJX.1

Meeting ID: 973 7479 1997

Passcode: 307481