PhD research focus

Kathleen Murphy-Hollies talks about what everyday confabulation is and what its consequences are, considering in particular the costs and benefits of confabulation for our ethical behaviour. Kathleen argues that confabulation can ‘cover up’ bad behaviour with unwarranted justifications. But, on the other hand, confabulation might actually be a way of drawing our attention to how we want to be and making sure that we live up to our ideals.

Lucy Prior discusses the distinction between anxiety as a universally experienced normal emotion and as a clinical problem, arguing that medicalising anxiety could impact on the agency of young people. While there may be some benefits in young people’s feelings being validated through diagnosis, Lucy argues that due to medicalisation young people may believe they cannot deal with their experiences.

Rosa Ritunnano discusses her cross-disciplinary research into the meaning of delusions, informed by her day-to-day clinical practice as a consultant psychiatrist and by her phenomenological background. Rosa warns against three dangers relevant to the study and treatment of delusions, most importantly that of assuming that they are meaningless utterances. Given their heterogeneity, Rosa highlights the need to understand delusions as part of a meaningful world of experiences linked to subjective life, autobiographical narratives and contexts.

Should psychopaths be blamed for disregarding others? Can they feel empathy and genuine concern? Jane Kisbey argues that psychopaths find it hard to consider the future consequences of their actions.