Flourishing, Worldbuilding, Desire: Keywords for a New Public Mental Health

Very often, public conversations about mental health are shaped by a language of crisis, vulnerability, and trauma. While waning public mental health is undoubtedly a problem, deficit-oriented framings often obscure as much as they illuminate. Proponents of “strengths-based” approaches have made this case for years now, ushering in a new focus on resources, capabilities, and aspirations to reorient public mental health efforts. How might we contribute to the development of an affirmative turn in public mental health by drawing on critical debates within the social sciences and humanities?

Please join us for this one-day workshop, bringing together practitioners, policymakers, and academic researchers to spark new conversations and new possibilities for public mental health. Keynote talks, roundtables, and audience discussion will be organized around three keywords—flourishing, worldbuilding, desire. Conversations will be grounded in a wide range of academic disciplines (including anthropology, philosophy, psychology, and public policy) as well as the practicalities of real-world intervention. Together, we will reconsider what public mental health is, how and where it happens, and how we might better cultivate it.

Keynote speakers:

• Jess Cooper (University of Edinburgh)
• Blaine Fowers (University of Miami)
• Jarrett Zigon (University of Virginia)

Confirmed panellists:

• Giulia Bonasio (Durham University)
• Liana Chase (Durham University)
• Francis McKay (Newcastle University & Gateshead Council)
• Jesse Proudfoot (Durham University)
• David Woodhead (Centre for Mental Health)
• More to come!

Please note that this event is free to attend. If you have any dietary and/or access requirements, please get in touch with us at [email protected]

This interdisciplinary, cross-sector event is co-hosted by The Practice Site of the Discovery Research Platform for Medical Humanities, the Durham Centre for the Anthropology of Health, and the Gateshead Council Health Determinants Research Collaboration.