SAP sponsored event: Phenomenology of Addiction: Substance Use and Lived Experience

In a recent interview Ireland’s Minister of State with responsibility for Public Health, Well Being and the National Drugs Strategy, highlighted the significance of focusing on the lived experience of drug users. Emphasis on lived experience is nowadays considered as the state of art in psychopathology. Not surprisingly to those familiar with the history of philosophy, such an emphasis is most often linked to the philosophical movement of phenomenology.

The conference has the following 4 objectives:

1) To examine the extent to which phenomenology can function as a theoretical framework that shifts our assumptions about addictive behaviour.

2) To reconsider the categories that have been used historically to capture “pathological” or “deviant” behaviours of people with addictions.

3) To develop the conceptual tools that can help us understand how addicted persons relate to the world, others and their own body.

4) To discuss healing strategies and how important it is to cultivate new ways of relating to oneself, others and the world in the process of recovery.

Speakers Include:

Ion Copoeru (Babes-Bolyai University of Cluj)

Ryan Kemp (Central & North West London NHS Foundation Trust)

Zoey Lavallee (McGill University)

Guilherme Messas (Ciências Médicas da Santa Casa de Sao Paulo)

Marcin Moskalewicz (Heidelberg University; Poznan University of Medical Sciences)

Gerda Reith (University of Glasgow)

Anna Westin (St Mellitus College)

Representatives of Mad in Ireland

The programme of the event will be announced in due course.

With the support of the Society for Applied Philosophy, the Mind Association and the UCD Centre for Ethics in Public Life.

For inquiries please email Dr Georgios Petropoulos: georgios.petropoulos@ucd.ie